Placeholder while loading article actions
With winds of 110 miles per hour, Agatha will face off the southwest coast of Mexico as a dangerous Category 2 hurricane, the strongest the country has suffered in May.
The National Hurricane Center warns that the storm will trigger “life-threatening” winds and an “extremely dangerous” ocean swell near where it lands on Monday afternoon or evening.
Both along the coast and inland in southern Mexico, the storm poses a threat of “sudden and potentially deadly mudslides,” according to the center.
Assuming Agatha maintains its strength as it crosses the coast, it will become only the third hurricane to hit Mexico from the eastern Pacific Ocean in May, and the most intense.
The remnants of the storm are more likely to enter the Gulf of Mexico later this week and are part of a new system that could bring stormy weather to Florida over the weekend.
For now, a hurricane warning covers the area from Salina Cruz to Lagunas de Chacahua in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, with tropical storm warnings to the north and south.
At 10 a.m. Monday, central time, the storm centered about 50 miles southwest of Puerto Angel, Mexico, and turned northeast at 8 mph. The storm is likely to make landfall near Puerto Angel or Mazunte, both small coastal towns.
Maximum 110 mph storm winds are expected to remain stable until they reach the ground before weakening rapidly to the ground. Its hurricane-force winds extend 15 miles from the center, but tropical storm-force winds extend up to 90 miles.
Heavy winds and heavy rains began in southern Mexico on Monday morning, and the Hurricane Center writes that they will intensify as the day progresses. The following hurricane effects are expected:
- Monday afternoon and evening, “life-threatening” hurricane-force winds near where the center crosses the coast in Oaxaca.
- Coastal flooding “extremely dangerous” by the ocean swell, or an increase in storm-driven water above the normally dry land, near and east of where the center of Agatha touches land. “Near the coast, the wave will be accompanied by large and destructive waves,” the center writes.
- The potential for “sudden, life-threatening mudslides” in the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, with up to 15 to 20 inches of rain on high ground.
Agatha is likely to break up across the rugged terrain of southern Mexico, but her remains are expected to enter the southern Gulf of Mexico in Campeche Bay in half a week.
The Hurricane Center writes that they may be attracted to a “large, complex area of low pressure that is expected to develop in Central America, the Yucatan Peninsula, and the southwestern Gulf of Mexico.” There is a 40 percent chance the low-pressure area will turn into a depression or tropical storm, the center says.
8 AM EDT May 30: There is an average chance of development later this week from a large, complex area of low pressure that is expected to develop in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico, the mainland. Yucatan and the northwestern Caribbean Sea. Follow the latest news at pic.twitter.com/U4sv9Rg42G
– National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) May 30, 2022
Some computer models show that the low-pressure zone brings rain to Florida on weekends or weekends, but it is unclear whether environmental conditions will withstand more than a light storm.