Hurricane Patricia made landfall on Mexico’s Pacific coast, about 55 miles west-northwest of Manzanillo at about 6:15 p.m on Friday evening as a Category 5 storm, with sustained winds of 190 mph and gusts to 235 mph .
The hurricane is the strongest hurricane ever recorded.
Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo were hit by strong winds and heavy rain brought by the hurricane.
By Friday night, Hurricane Patricia weakened to a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph as it moved inland over southwestern Mexico.
The National Hurricane Center said that Hurricane Patricia remained “extremely dangerous.”
Category Five Hurricane Patricia, with maximum sustained winds of 325 kilometers (200 miles) per hour, is moving toward Mexico’s Pacific coast on Friday, and the country is bracing for a potential catastrophe.
The hurricane is expected to make a landfall somewhere between the major port of Manzanillo in Colima state and Jalisco state’s tourist resort of Puerto Vallartlater later Friday.
AFP reported that Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong told Radio Formula that, “It’s a devastating hurricane, the biggest since we can record hurricanes, and this is why we have to take extreme precautions.”
The US National Hurricane Center said on its website that Patricia was, “the strongest hurricane on record in the National Hurricane Center’s area of responsibility which includes the Atlantic and the eastern North Pacific.
The authorities are conducting evacuations, closing ports and school as the storm surge is expected to cause coastal flooding around the center of the landfall.
The National Water Commission said that Jalisco, Michoacan, Colima and Nayarit are expected to get the equivalent of 40 percent of their annual rainfall in the next 48 hours.
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