Hurricane Kay made landfall Thursday in a sparsely populated area of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula before downgrading to a tropical storm, following a path forecasters said might bring rain to far southern California over the weekend.
Kay’s maximum sustained winds have decreased to nearly 70 miles per hour (110 kilometers per hour), and it is forecast to weaken further in the next few hours.
Its vortex made landfall when it was still a hurricane near the town of Bahía Asunción in the state of Baja California Sur. It is forecast to return to sea over cooler waters, which will take away from its strength.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said there was a chance the storm’s outer bands might bring heavy rain and flash flooding to parts of southern California and southwestern Arizona on Friday. night and Saturday.
The NHC reported that Kay was located regarding 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Punta Eugenia mid-followingnoon Thursday. She was traveling in a north-northwest direction at 14 mph (22 km/h).
Ivory Small, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego, said the storm is expected to hit the San Diego County area with slightly less force than a tropical storm. Although the vortex would remain well out to sea, he said the winds would be strong enough to blow down tree limbs.
About 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) of rain is forecast for the coast and more than 10 centimeters (4 inches) in the mountains, “which is a lot of rain for September,” he said. Kay might also cause temperatures to drop around San Diego, which has been under excessive heat advisories.
The last time a hurricane or tropical storm came near San Diego was Nora in 1997, which entered the United States as a tropical storm near Yuma, Arizona, and also dumped 1 inch of rain in the San Diego area, it added. Small.
The Baja California Sur government reported that more than 1,600 people had taken refuge in shelters. He said some streams were already rising and he closed some roads.
Some landslides had blocked the passage on some roads on the peninsula, but there were no reports of injuries.
The mayor of the town of Mulegé, on the Gulf of California, said Thursday morning that the town has been without running water since Wednesday, and asked state authorities to send tankers.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Earl was offshore in the Atlantic Ocean and is forecast to pass just southeast of Bermuda on Thursday night as a Category 3 storm.
The island’s homeland security minister, Michael Weeks, told reporters that government offices and public services will continue to operate, but warned people to prepare for tropical storm conditions.
“Bermuda will definitely feel the effects of Earl, so we need to avoid overconfidence,” he said.
Weeks also warned of flooding in low-lying areas and said authorities had opened a shelter.
“I don’t need to remind you that by their nature storms are unpredictable, so we need to make sure we are ready and prepared,” he said.
Earl was regarding 120 miles (170 kilometers) south of Bermuda Thursday followingnoon with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph (155 km/h), and was moving northeast at 16 mph (26 km/h). ).
Further east, Danielle became a post-tropical storm in the Atlantic regarding 1,145 kilometers (715 miles) north-northwest of the Azores. Its maximum sustained winds were 100 km/h (65 mph).
