Rapidly intensifying Hurricane Marie reached Category 2 status off the coast of Baja California Sur on Friday, closing ports and suspending classes across the state.
A 10 a.m. social media post from the National Meteorological Service (SMN) said Marie was located 885 kilometers west-southwest of Cabo San Lucas, at the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula.
“It has maximum sustained winds of 155 km/h, gusts of 195 km/h and is moving west-northwest at 15 km/h,” the National Water Commission (Conagua) reported.
A Tropical Cyclone Advisory was issued by the SMN which forecast intense localized rains for the northwestern coast of Mexico, including the states of Sinaloa, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima and Michoacán to the south of BCS.
Civil protection authorities urged the public to take extreme precautions and heed the recommendations issued by the authorities of the National Civil Protection System.
Navigation is also severely restricted due to the extreme weather conditions. Maritime authorities have closed ports to small vessels in San José del Cabo and Magdalena Bay.
High waves are another risk factor along the western coastline, with waves of 1.5 to 2.5 meters (5-8 feet) in height forecast for the peninsula.
Conagua said Marie’s main threat is the extensive cloud bands which increase the likelihood of heavy rainfall and could cause more flooding in vulnerable coastal areas. This prompted BCS Governor Víctor Manuel Castro to suspend all school activities in the municipality of Los Cabos.
Cabo San Lucas was battered by high winds and heavy rain on Wednesday while Marie was still a tropical storm.
Legendary rock musician Sammy Hagar — owner of the resort city’s famous Cabo Wabo Cantina — said in an Instagram post that the storm caused a great deal of damage, asking his fans to pray for his club and the city.
In a Thursday Instagram post, Hagar praised the authorities for their quick reaction to the flooding.
“Cabo to the rescue,” he wrote. “Congratulations to the community for pulling the cleanup crew together so quickly.”
Hurricane Marie — along with the Mexican monsoon, low-pressure troughs, cyclonic circulations at high levels of the atmosphere and Tropical Wave Number 36 in southern and western Mexico — was also forecast to generate intense rains in Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas and Tabasco on Friday.
Conagua said Marie is expected to weaken to a Category 1 storm on Saturday as it moves further out to sea.
Though it could soon thereafter be downgraded to a tropical storm, atmospheric instability is likely to continue interacting with low-pressure troughs in the interior of the country into next week.
With reports from Informador, El Universal and N+
