Jova Comes Ashore in Mexico

Hurricane Jova came ashore near Mexico’s Pacific resort of Manzanillo, packing a punch with winds of 85 miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center said.

The storm, which lashed the region with heavy rain and high surf, was 80 miles northwest of Manzanillo and moving north at 9 mph, the center said today in a 2 a.m. PDT advisory.

A “dangerous storm surge” will bring life-threatening waves and coastal flooding to the area while weakening over land, the Miami-based center said. Rainfall totals may reach as much as 20 inches in Michoacan, Colima and Jalisco states.

West of Jova and at sea, Tropical Storm Irwin regained strength with winds of 40 mph. Irwin is about 555 miles from the southern tip of Baja California. It is forecast to weaken again to a tropical depression and dissipate over the Pacific.

The center is also monitoring a tropical depression bearing 35 mph winds that formed just south of Mexico’s Gulf of Tehuantepec near the Guatemala border that may become a tropical storm later today and move inland tonight.

Hurricane Jova Update

Hurricane Jova bore down on the Pacific coast of southwest Mexico on Tuesday threatening to pound one of the country's busiest cargo ports and tourist resorts with destructive waves, heavy rainfall and flooding.

The Category 3 storm, with top winds reaching 115 miles per hour, was about 150 miles southwest of the port city of Manzanillo at 5 a.m. EDT, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Jova should make landfall on Tuesday afternoon or evening to the northwest of Manzanillo near the resort towns of Melaque and Barra de Navidad on a stretch of coast dotted with beaches south of Puerto Vallarta.

Manzanillo, Mexico's main point of arrival for cargo containers, has been closed since late Sunday and about 13 container ships are stuck in the port.

An official said shipments that were held up because of the lock-down, included 15,000 tonnes of sugar from Colombia, 16,000 tonnes of imported rolled steel and a shipment of iron pellets for domestic use.

Manzanillo handles about 750 containers of cargo a month and ships goods including cars, car parts, cattle, minerals and tequila to Asian and North American markets.

Hurricane Jova Heads to Mexico

Jova strengthened into a major hurricane over the Pacific Ocean, packing winds of as much as 120 miles per hour as it moved toward Mexico.

The storm was about 265 miles southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, at 2 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time and moving east at 5 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. Jova is now a Category 3 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, indicating it’s capable of causing “devastating damage.”

“Some additional strengthening is forecast during the next day or so, followed by little change in intensity until landfall,” the NHC said on its website. The center of the hurricane will near Mexico’s coast by tomorrow afternoon, it said.

The Mexican government issued a hurricane warning for Punta San Telmo north to Cabo Corrientes, and a tropical-storm warning from Lazaro Cardenas to south of Punta San Telmo, the advisory showed.

Irwin, another tropical storm in the Eastern Pacific, is 790 miles southwest of the southern tip of Baja California with winds of 50 mph, down from hurricane strength earlier.