Powerful and sprawling Hurricane Odile hit the southern Baja California peninsula overnight, tearing away the facades of luxury resorts, shattering countless car and hotel windows and leaving lobbies swamped and full of debris on Monday.
Odile was the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in the Baja Peninsula, tied with Hurricane Olivia of 1967, reports Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters.
Dozens of arriving and departing flights had been cancelled at Cabo San Lucas International Airport as of midday Monday, according to FlightStats.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Odile’s center made landfall at about 9:45 p.m. PDT near Cabo San Lucas. It said at landfall, Odile had estimated wind speed of 125 mph, and an automated station near Cabo San Lucas reported sustained winds of 89 mph with a gust to 116 mph.
As of 11 a.m. EDT, the center of Odile was located about 65 miles east of Cabo San Lazaro, Mexico, and had maximum sustained winds of about 100 mph, making it a Category 2 storm, down from a Category 4 on Sunday. Odile was moving toward the northwest at 14 mph.
In addition to the immediate threat of high winds and storm surge, rainfall from 6-12 inches with isolated amounts to 15 inches can also be expected on the southern Baja peninsula, according to the Weather Channel.
Life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides are a good bet in areas of heaviest rainfall.
The newspaper Tribuna de los Cabos reported people being injured by flying glass.
STORM TRACKER: Track the projected path of Hurricane Odile
Though winds from Odile will diminish over the next day or so, remnants of a weakening Odile and another weather system could combine to bring more heavy rain to the Southwest later in the week.
Cities that could be affected by the heavy, flooding thunderstorms include Phoenix, Flagstaff, Tucson, Las Vegas, and eventually Salt Lake City, AccuWeather meteorologist Brian Lada reports.
Flash flooding should be anticipated with thunderstorms that develop as the abundance of tropical moisture allows storms to dump 1 to 2 inches of rain in under an hour.
“It is hard to say if the effects of this storm will be as bad as Hurricane Norbert,” the National Weather Service in Tucson posted on Twitter.
In Cabo, damage was reported along the “entire corridor” between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas, said Deneb Poli, a medical worker at the Melia Cabo Real. She said all the hotel’s guests and employees were fine, but electricity and phone lines were cut and cell coverage was spotty.
“There are parts of hotels that are completely collapsed. … The damage is pretty extensive.”
Poli said the plan for now was to stay put. By morning the rains had stopped and winds had died down, and residents and tourists emerged from shelters to assess the damage.
Prior to the storm, Mexican authorities evacuated coastal areas and readied shelters for up to 30,000 people.
A hurricane warning remained in effect from Punta Abreojos to Loreto. Mexican authorities declared a maximum alert for areas in or near Odile’s path, and ports in Baja California were ordered closed.
Hurricane Odile’s rampage up Mexico’s Baja peninsula continues what has been a ferocious hurricane season in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Odile is the 10th hurricane in the Pacific so far this year. This compares to a rather quiet season in the Atlantic, where only four hurricanes have formed.
Eastern Pacific hurricanes seldom impact the USA, but rains from the remnants of Hurricane Norbert swamped Phoenix last week with record rainfall.
In the central Atlantic, Hurricane Edouard had sustained winds near 105 mph, although it was forecast to remain far out at sea and pose no threat to land.
The hurricane center said Edouard’s center was 655 miles east south-east of Bermuda and was moving northwest at 14 mph.
Edouard is stronger than any storm in all of 2013, according to atmospheric scientist Brian McNoldy of the University of Miami. He said it’s the strongest Atlantic hurricane since Sandy reached 105 mph on the morning of Oct. 29, 2012, some 686 days ago.
The post Breaking News: Hurricane Odile lashes Mexico’s Baja Peninsula appeared first on Baja California Vacation Rentals.
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