Hurricane Orlene gradually lost strength before making landfall in Category 1 on Monday morning in southern Mexico’s state of Sinaloa on the Pacific coast, the National Water Commission (Conagua) said.
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Orlene was rated 4 on a scale of 5 on Sunday and made landfall 5 km off the town of Escuinapa in southern Sinaloa at 13:45 GMT with maximum winds of 140 km/h, according to the same source.
The hurricane formed on Saturday morning and gradually increased in strength. By early Sunday morning he had reached category 3 and a few hours later had passed to category 4. It was then described as an “extremely dangerous” hurricane. But it started to falter on Sunday afternoon.
According to the United States National Hurricane Center (NHC), Orlene is expected to continue weakening throughout the day, becoming a tropical storm in the afternoon and dissipating overnight or Tuesday morning.
But the phenomenon will bring heavy rains to southern Sinaloa state and neighboring northern state of Nayarit, according to the NHC.
Mexico’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts are prone to hurricanes each year, usually between May and November. In October 1997, more than 200 people died when Hurricane Paulina, Category 4, struck the Pacific coast.