Satellite image of Hurricane Hilary’s advance on August 20. CONAGUA
Hurricane Hilary has already wreaked havoc on its way across the Baja California Peninsula. At least one man has died in the Santa Rosalía community of Baja California Sur when his car was swept away by a stream caused by heavy rains in the area. The meteorological phenomenon made landfall for the first time in the early hours of Sunday morning. At 4:30 a.m. (Mexico Central Time), the eye of the hurricane advanced over the coast of Punta Eugenia, crossed the islands of Natividad and Cedros and then returned to the sea, the Mexico Meteorological Service reports.
The cyclone has weakened over the past few hours, progressing from Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale to a tropical storm as it nears the peninsula’s coasts. Presenting wind speeds of 110 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 140 kilometers per hour, Hilary has also accelerated her pace with a speed of 41 kilometers per hour. The forecast is for it to make landfall around noon in the community of San Quintín, Baja California. The 9:00 a.m. Weather Service report indicated that Hilary was 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Cabo San Quintin.
The meteorologists’ forecast assumes that the phenomenon will develop into a tropical storm on land. The United States National Hurricane Center has warned that Hilary’s passage could result in “catastrophic” rainfall and “threatening” flooding in Baja California and Southern California. From San Quintín, the storm would move up the peninsula to reach Ensenada, Rosarito, and Tijuana before crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and reaching San Diego. Hilary will continue to bring heavy rains to southern California, which has already had the region’s first-ever tropical storm warning.
The Mexican government has set up 37 emergency shelters in the main cities of the peninsula. Tijuana City Council has closed Playas de Tijuana, one of the border city’s busiest entertainment centers, to the public. The Mexican army’s DN III plan was also implemented, which mobilized 18,000 soldiers to help the population affected by the heavy rains.
The hurricane season in the Pacific begins in May each year – in the Atlantic on June 1st – and ends in late November. This year started with Cyclone Adrian and Tropical Storm Bret: the first approached Mexico from the Pacific, the second from the Atlantic. Other phenomena followed, such as Hurricane Beatriz, which threatened the western Mexican coasts with wind speeds of 120 kilometers per hour and finally dissipated off the coast of Jalisco.
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