Hurricane Marie kicks up high surf along Mexico’s Pacific coast

MEXICO CITY – Powerful Hurricane Marie kicked high swells along Mexico’s northern Pacific coast on Monday, even as it weakened slightly to a Category 4 storm. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said it would likely raise waves along Southern California later in the week.

The Miami-based Hurricane Center in Miami said that Marie had sustained winds of up to 145 mph (230 kph) and was located about 465 miles (7505 kilometres) southwest of the southern tip of Baja California. It said the storm was moving west-northwest at 12 mph (19 kph).

Swells provoked by the storm were affecting much of Mexico’s Pacific coast and the Hurricane Center warned of dangerous surf and rip current conditions.

Hurricane-force winds extended up to 60 miles (95 kilometres) away from the storm’s centre, with tropical storm-force winds reaching out to 310 miles (500 kilometres).

The southern Pacific coast state of Oaxaca requested federal disaster relief after about 10,000 homes were either damaged, flooded or cut off by mudslides on the state’s mountainous rural roads due to rains associated with Marie last week. One man was injured in a mudslide but there were no reported deaths, the state government said late Sunday.

The government of Baja California Sur, closer to the hurricane’s current location, said it would cancel some classes in the resort cities of Los Cabos as a precautionary measure.

Image: NOAA’s GOES-West satellite captured three storms in an infrared image at 0900 UTC (5 a.m. EDT).The infrared image was created at NASA/NOAA’s GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.