Hurricane John struck Mexico’s southern Pacific coast Monday night with fierce winds and heavy rainfall after strengthening from tropical storm to major hurricane in a matter of hours.
John’s rapid intensification caught authorities off guard as they scrambled to update their guidance to residents and keep pace with the stronger storm.
It hit land as a Category 3 hurricane, pummeling a tourist hub of the country’s Oaxaca state with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (190 kph).
Shortly before the hurricane hit, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said “life-threatening” and storm surges and flash floods were already ravaging the Pacific coast near Oaxaca. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and other authorities urged people to take shelter.
“Seek higher ground, protect yourselves and do not forget that life is the most important thing; material things can be replaced. We are here,” López Obrador wrote on the social media platform X.
John hit land near the town of Punta Maldonado and was also likely to batter nearby tourist hubs Acapulco and Puerto Escondido before weakening inland.
The unexpected surge in strength caught scientists, authorities and residents of the area by surprise, something AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Matt Benz attributed to warmer oceans, which add fuel to the hurricanes.
As a result, surprise surges in hurricanes’ strength have become increasingly common, Benz said.
“These are storms that we haven’t really experienced before,” he said. “Rapid intensification has occurred more frequently in modern times as opposed to back in the historical record. So that’s telling us there’s something going on there.”
