Hurricane Marie rapidly intensified into a major hurricane on Saturday night, becoming the third major hurricane of the 2014 Eastern Pacific Hurricane Season.
While the storm will not have any direct impacts on Mexico or the United States, indirect impacts, such as surf and enhanced monsoonal rainfall, could be rather significant.
During Saturday morning, Marie intensified into a Category 1 hurricane. Since then, the storm has undergone explosive intensification to become a Category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph.
The storm is expected to maintain strength heading into the new week before gradually weakening around midweek.
With its classification as a Category 5 hurricane, Marie is the strongest hurricane over the eastern Pacific since Hurricane Celia in 2010.
“Marie is a very large hurricane, and as its moisture gets drawn to the northeast into the region, very heavy rainfall is possible, along with localized flooding,” said AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Anthony Sagliani.
Sagliani continued by saying, “Some of the most likely cities to see locally heavy rainfall include La Paz, Cabo San Lucas and Hermosillo in Mexico, and Phoenix, Tucson and Albuquerque in the southwestern United States.”
Hurricane Marie will also cause very rough surf to spread northward along the beaches of Mexico and Southern California later on this week, which, in addition to locally heavy rainfall, could be a danger for any residents or vacationers.
