MEXICO CITY: Hurricane Kay made landfall in northwestern Mexico before losing strength as it moved inland, bringing heavy rain to parts of the Baja California Peninsula, forecasters said.
Kay came ashore in a fairly sparsely populated area as a Category One hurricane -- the lowest on a scale of five -- and was later downgraded to a tropical storm.
On Friday, Kay was packing maximum sustained winds of 70 miles (110 kilometres) per hour and located about 30 miles east of Punta Eugenia, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).
"Kay continues to bring very heavy rains to portions of the Baja California Peninsula," it said.
Mexican authorities had earlier opened storm shelters and urged residents to take "extreme precautions" due to the danger of landslides and flooding.
Strong winds and heavy rain were also expected across parts of southern California and southwestern Arizona, the NHC said.
Mexico is regularly lashed by tropical storms on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts, generally between the months of May and November.
This year was the first since 1997 that no tropical cyclones formed in the North Atlantic, Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico in August, according to the NHC.
The deadliest storm to hit Mexico last year was a Category Three hurricane called Grace that killed 11 people in the eastern states of Veracruz and Puebla in August.
BLINKEN TO VISIT
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and top US trade officials will visit Mexico next week for economic talks, the State Department announced, hoping to improve ties that have frayed in recent years.
The US-Mexico High-Level Economic Dialogue "is a strategic and flexible diplomatic platform for the United States and Mexico to advance shared economic, commercial and social priorities," the department said in a statement.
Blinken will visit Mexico City on September 12 with US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, and Deputy US Trade Representative Jayme White, meeting with their Mexican counterparts.
The two countries are part of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement of July 2021.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Mexico was the second largest trading partner of the United States, behind China, with more than $675 billion in annual trade, according to US figures.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador visited Washington for talks with President Joe Biden in July, with Biden saying the two sides need to rebuild relations.
A month earlier, the Mexican leader snubbed Biden by refusing to participate in the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles on the grounds that Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua had not been invited.
Key issues creating strains include the tens of thousands of migrants each month who pass through Mexico hoping to cross the border into the United States.
Washington has also challenged the Mexican government's support for its own state-controlled energy companies CFE and Pemex, limiting the ability of US firms to compete in the Mexican market and allegedly in violation of the trade pact. -- dpa/AFP
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