Perilous Times and Climate Change
Celia upgraded to major hurricane, new Pacific storm forms
by Staff Writers
Miami (AFP) June 23, 2010
Hurricane Celia, the first of the 2010 Pacific season, strengthened
Wednesday into a major Category Three storm south of Mexico, while
another potential hurricane was churning in Celia's wake, US officials
said.
Packing sustained winds near 185 kilometers (115 miles) per hour with
higher gusts, Celia was some 1,180 kilometers south of Cabo San Lucas
on the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula at 2100 GMT
Wednesday, with no threat posed to coastlines, the US-based National
Hurricane Center said.
The storm, a Category Three on the one-to-five Saffir-Simpson hurricane
wind scale, was moving westward, away from land, at about 20 kilometers
per hour and was expected to track to the west-northwest in the coming
days.
On Celia's heels is Tropical Storm Darby, about 1,500 kilometers to the
east, and experts forecast it gaining strength and shifting northward
towards the Mexican coast west of the popular resort city of Acapulco
by Monday.
Darby was generating winds of 100 kilometers per hour with higher
gusts, and was traveling at 19 kilometers per hour.
"Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours and
Darby could become a hurricane on Thursday," the hurricane center said.
The other major storm to strike the Pacific so far this season was
Tropical Storm Agatha, which slammed into Guatemala in May, unleashing
heavy rains and floods that left some 275 people dead or missing across
Central America.