Schools and government offices were closed in the Baja California peninsula as the storm crawled north off the coast while the navy deployed around 100 servicemen in six vehicles in case anybody needed help.

After swelling into a category three hurricane on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale on Monday, Paul lost steam as it approached Baja California on Tuesday.

In its latest advisory, the US National Hurricane Center said Paul was 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest off the town of Cabo San Lazaro, with maximum sustained winds of 110 kilometers per hour (70 miles per hour).

The storm was expected to dump three to five inches of rain over the central and southern parts of the peninsula, with as much as 10 inches falling in isolated areas, the Miami-based center said.

"These rains could produce life-threatening flash floods and mudslides," especially in mountainous areas, the advisory said.

Paul was also expected to generate dangerous ocean swells and rip currents.

The Mexican National Weather Service said the storm would likely not make landfall but still presented a "strong" threat.

Civil protection authorities in the state of Baja California Sur issued an alert and as a precaution they opened 133 shelters that can house around 30,000 people.

On the Atlantic, meanwhile, Hurricane Rafael was packing maximum sustained winds of 140 kph and was located about 190 kilometers southeast of Bermuda.

On the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, one man was killed over the weekend when his car was swept away in a flash flood generated by Rafael, then by a tropical storm. The body was found on Tuesday.