CLIMATE-NORMA/ – REUTERS Agency
MEXICO CITY, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Hurricane Norma weakened to Category 2 on Saturday as it approached dangerously south of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, where it is expected to make landfall within hours and bring torrential rains with risk of landslides.
Mexican authorities called on residents of the state of Baja California Sur to take precautions and stay in their homes, while shelters were set up with a total capacity for 10,000 people.
Early on Saturday, the center of Norma was located about 65 kilometers south-southwest of the popular tourist destination of Cabo San Lucas and had maximum sustained winds of 175 kilometers per hour, the United States National Hurricane Center said in a report ( CNH).
The storm was moving north at a speed of 15 kilometers per hour and is expected to cross the southern tip of Baja California after making landfall on Saturday to reach the Mexican coast again on Sunday.
Local authorities maintained a “prevention zone” for possible hurricane effects between the towns of Todos Santos and Los Barriles, in the state of Baja California Sur, and a “surveillance zone” on the Marías Islands, in Nayarit.
“Precipitation could be with electric shocks and generate landslides, increased levels of rivers and streams, overflows and floods,” a government meteorological report indicated on Saturday.
Norma could also produce waterspouts and waves of between 7 and 9 meters in some coastal areas, said local authorities, who called on tourists and maritime navigation to take extreme precautions. (Reporting by Marion Giraldo)
Source: Ambito
