Topline
The National Hurricane Center is warning of a major hurricane moving toward Mexico’s Los Cabos resort area that promises heavy rainfall, flooding and life-threatening rip currents to the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula this weekend.
Resorts at Medano Beach in Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico.
Key Facts
Hurricane Norma quickly strengthened to become a category 3 storm Wednesday night with maximum sustained winds near 125 mph, the National Hurricane Center said Thursday morning.
It’s possible the storm continues to strengthen Thursday but will likely weaken before it hits land, though Norma is still expected to bring between 5 and 15 inches of rain between Saturday and Sunday, triggering flash flooding and possible mudslides.
Swells generated by Norma are likely to cause “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” along the coast of western Mexico and toward Baja California in the coming days, the Hurricane Center warned.
Surprising Fact
The storm will be the third major weather event to hit Mexico in two weeks—Hurricane Lidia reached category 4 status before it hit Puerto Vallarta as a category 2 storm last week, and tropical Storm Max brought “torrential” rain to the states of Guerrero and Michoacan on Mexico’s southern Pacific coast on October 9. Shopkeepers boarded up windows and piled sandbags to protect from flooding as Hurricane Lidia descended near the small beach town of Las Penitas. Jalisco Gov. Enrique Alfaro said on X that Lidia brought rain, high surf and landslides, and one man was killed when a tree was uprooted and fell on his car, the BBC reported. Tropical Storm Max made landfall about 40 miles east of the resort town of Zihuatanejo days earlier, per the Associated Press.
Key Background
Los Cabos has hit record tourism numbers in the rebound since the Covid-19 pandemic began, with more than 2.8 million visitors in 2021 and a 47.3% rise in visitors in the first six months of 2022 over the same period the year before. Ongoing growth in the area is expected to see 540 new hotel rooms added by the end of 2024, with the opening of a St. Regis hotel, Four Seasons Resort and Residences and a Park Hyatt. The number of international tourists visiting Cabo is up 10% this year, according to a report by Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico.
