Hurricane Odile, the strongest to hit Baja California Sur in decades, weakened slightly as it battered the Mexican peninsula with high winds and rain.
Odile went ashore near the resort city of Cabo San Lucas at about 10:45 p.m. Mexico City time yesterday as a Category 3 storm with winds of 125 miles (201 kilometers) per hour, tying 1967 storm Olivia as the area’s most powerful at landfall in the satellite era, said the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
It is now a Category 2 system about 40 miles west of La Paz, Mexico, with top winds of 110 mph.
“The hurricane should steadily weaken during the next few days while the circulation and inner-core continue to interact with the Baja California peninsula,” the center said.
Mexico declared a red alert along the coastline as well as the mainland as the country prepared to celebrate its independence day holiday. As of 10 p.m. yesterday in Mexico City, 18 flights, or about 30 percent, in and out of Los Cabos International Airport had been canceled, according to FlightAware, a Houston-based airline tracking company.
Hurricane conditions will spread north over the peninsula today and tomorrow, the Miami center said. Six to 12 inches (15 to 30 centimeters) of rain are forecast and storm surge may reach 6 to 10 feet (1.8 to 3 meters) high, with waves pounding in on top of that, said Steve Wistar, a meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania.
Tropical systems in the Northern Hemisphere spin counter-clockwise, and when added to the forward motion of the storm, this means the northeast side is the most powerful. There is a good chance Odile will cause extensive damage, Wistar said. Hurricane-force winds reach out about 50 miles from its center, and tropical-storm strength winds extend about 185 miles.
Residents were told to leave their homes if they didn’t feel safe and know the route to a temporary shelter in case they decided to leave later, according to Mexico’s civil protection agency. Everyone was told to stay indoors.
Storms of this strength can damage buildings and block roads as trees are uprooted, according to the center. Toppled power lines can cause outages lasting for days.
Widespread heavy rain is forecast for Baja California Sur, as well as the Mexican states of Colima, Jalisco and western Michoacan to the east, the center said. Isolated regions may receive as much as 18 inches of rain.
The hurricane center calls for Odile to deteriorate into a depression, the weakest form of tropical system, by the end of the week.
The U.S. Southwest has a good chance of getting another round of flooding rain as the moisture from Odile heads north, Wistar said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Marino at dmarino4@bloomberg.net Charlotte Porter, Stephen Cunningham
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