Patricia faded nearly as fast as it grew, its strength sapped by landfall and a coastal mountain range that blocked its path. A onetime frightening Category 5 hurricane with 200-mile-per-hour winds, greater than any storm in modern recorded history, Patricia’s winds were 135 miles per hour when it made landfall at 6:18 p.m.in coastal Jalisco state.
Advertisement
Enrique de la Madrid, Mexico’s secretary of tourism, said tourist resorts such as Puerto Vallarta had had “extraordinary luck” in avoiding damage from the powerful storm.
While the major cities were largely spared, the extent of damage to the more remote areas was still unclear.
According to BBC, the National Hurricane Center offered a Hurricane Patricia livestream page on its official website, whereby they posted live updates of Hurricane Patricia’s route. “We can not let our guard down”, he said.
Weather experts said the storm could have a catastrophic impact, but initial reports suggested that Patricia had left more of an expensive mess than outright disaster in its wake.
“All the streets here in town are full of downed trees all over the place”, said Hernandez, who described Patricia as the strongest storm he’s seen in a quarter century of living on the coast. Meanwhile, those in Patricia’s direct path a few 60 miles northwest of Manzanillo reported storm surges, road-blocking landslides, and fallen trees and power lines. Puerto Vallarta, a beach resort destination north of the hurricane’s landfall, was reported to have moderated rain and its main services unaffected, newspaper Reforma said on its website.
Thousands of residents and tourists along the coast had fled the storm’s advance and ended up in improvised shelters. According to US National Hurricane Center, the hurricane will further weaken into a tropical storm during next few days.
But Weaver and her family were able to catch their scheduled flight back to Colorado Saturday afternoon as the storm slowed and did not hit hard where the family was.
It seems that Hurricane Patricia is becoming weaker as it nears the US but despite that the torrential downpour can still cause havoc for Mexico, Texas, Louisiana and other USA states down south.
Advertisement
“Even though Patricia is weakening quickly, strong and damaging winds at higher elevations could persist through this morning”, the hurricane center said.
