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WEATHER
Mexico

Category 3 Hurricane Sandra spins off Mexico's west coast

Doyle Rice
USA TODAY
Hurricane Sandra is forecast to curve toward the west coast of Mexico over the next few days.

Hurricane Sandra, spinning about 555 miles off the west coast of Mexico, is the latest major hurricane ever recorded in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

As of 4 p.m. ET, Sandra was a Category 3 hurricane, with winds of 115 mph. (Major hurricanes are Category 3, 4, or 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.)

There have now been nine major hurricanes over the eastern Pacific during the 2015 season, which is a record for that basin, the National Hurricane Center said.

The storm is forecast to strengthen further over the next day before weakening and hitting either the Baja Peninsula of Mexico and/or mainland Mexico as a tropical storm Saturday or Sunday.

The biggest concern will be heavy rainfall that can cause flash flooding and mudslides, according to AccuWeather. Areas at greatest risk for flooding include southern Baja California, Sinaloa, northern Durango and Chihuahua states.

Up to 10 inches of rain is possible in some areas.

If it does remain intact as at least a tropical depression, it would be the latest landfalling eastern Pacific tropical cyclone in Mexico in the six-plus-decade database, Weather.com reported.

Hurricane Tara is the current record-holder for latest landfalling tropical cyclone in the eastern Pacific, according to hurricane expert Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University. Tara smashed into the west coast of Mexico on Nov. 12, 1961, killing hundreds of people.

The latest eastern Pacific hurricane overall was Hurricane Winnie, which spun off the coast of Mexico as a Category 1 hurricane in December 1983, never making landfall.

Sandra is the 16th hurricane of the eastern Pacific hurricane season, which ties the all-time record set in 1992 and 2014, Klotzbach said.

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