Weakened Hurricane Dora threatens Mexico's Baja

MEXICO CITY: Hurricane Dora dialed back its intensity as it roared along Mexico's coast, and while it was expected to remain offshore the storm could cause dangerous conditions Friday on the Baja peninsula, officials said.

The fourth hurricane of the 2011 season in the eastern Pacific weakened late Thursday to a category three storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, and further weakening was forecast, but it was still packing heavy rains and sustained winds of 195 kilometers per hour, Mexico's weather service said.

At 11:00 pm Thursday (0600 GMT Friday) Dora was churning some 515 kilometers southeast of the luxury beach resorts of Cabo San Lucas in southern Baja California, where authorities have issued a tropical storm warning.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that while "the center of Dora is expected to remain offshore of the southern Baja California peninsula... tropical storm conditions could reach portions of the tropical storm warning area by Friday night."

The storm was traveling at 15 kilometers per hour as it paralleled Mexico's coast, where it has kicked up what the NHC described as "life-threatening surf and rip current conditions" and battered southern states with heavy rains.

Mexican authorities braced for possible landslides in coastal areas already hit by torrential rains that left five dead and affected 200,000 people last weekend.

The 2011 season's first named storm, Arlene, left at least 16 people dead in Mexico as it drenched much of the country earlier this month.

Tropical storms and hurricanes last year caused flooding and mudslides that killed 125 people, left hundreds of thousands homeless and caused more than $4 billion in damages.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011