MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Hurricane Rick unleashed rain and wind on parts of Mexico’s Pacific coast late on Sunday as its center crept closer to the shore north of the beach resort of Acapulco, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The storm was 60 miles (100 km) south of the beach city of Zihuatanejo in Guerrero state as of 10 p.m. (0300 GMT), with “strong gusty winds and heavy rains” spreading.
Rick was packing maximum sustained winds of 90 miles (150 km) per hour as it edged northward at about 6 miles (9 km) per hour.
The NHC estimated the hurricane’s center would reach land by late Monday morning, pummeling the coast from Tecpan de Galeana in Guerrero, just north of Acapulco, to Punta San Telmo in Michoacan state.
Rain in parts of Guerrero and Michoacan was expected to amount to 20 inches, likely causing flooding and mudslides, the NHC said.
Mexico’s civil protection agency told residents in the southern parts of those states to stay indoors as of Sunday evening.
Guerrero’s education ministry said classes in the coastal area would be suspended on Monday, warning of intense rain, strong gusts of wind and high waves in the Costa Grande region.
In the Acapulco area and northward, waves could reach between 3 and 4 meters high, Guerrero officials said.
Rick was expected to dissipate by Tuesday, the NHC said.
Officials in Guerrero and Michoacan as well as the coastal states of Colima, Jalisco and Nayarit were opening shelters in areas expected to get heavy downpours, a government official told Televisa News.
Storm Pamela hit Mexico’s western state of Sinaloa https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/hurricane-pamela-hits-western-mexico-quickly-weakens-tropical-storm-2021-10-13 in mid-October as a hurricane, bringing down trees, damaging some buildings and flooding streets.
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Mark Porter, Robert Birsel)
