MONTERREY, Mexico Tens of thousands of people were being evacuated Friday from Mexico's Pacific coast as one of the the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere made landfall in the popular tourist area packing sustained winds of 165 mph, down from 200 mph earlier in the day.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted the Category 5 Hurricane Patricia would make a "potentially catastrophic landfall."
But wind speeds were lower than expected when Patricia's much-anticipated arrival finally came. Earlier in the day, the center described the storm as the most powerful ever recorded in the eastern Pacific or Atlantic basins. It warned of powerful winds and torrential rain that could bring life-threatening flash flooding and dangerous, destructive storm surge.
Patricia, while still potentially deadly, falls short of the highest winds ever recorded at landfall. Typhoon Haiyan had winds of 195 mph as it slammed into the Philippines in November 2013, leaving more than 7,300 people dead or missing, primarily from its massive 15- to 19-foot storm surge.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said during a radio interview on Friday that he didn't want to create panic in the western states of Jalisco, Colima and Nayarit that are in Patricia's path, but that it's important for people there to understand the magnitude of the historic storm.
Nieto said Patricia has surpassed the constraints of the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, which defines a top-rated category 5 storm as having wind speeds higher than 156 mph.
"If there were a category six for hurricanes, this would be a category six," he said. "It's a hurricane that hasn't been seen before, not just in Mexico, not just in the United States. It has wind speeds that are greater than the most intense, strongest hurricanes ever recorded on the planet."
Nieto said the entirety of the federal government is responding to the storm, working with state and local officials to coordinate evacuations and position emergency personnel to respond. He told Mexicans that they have some difficult days ahead, but urged them to follow the instructions of their local authorities to survive the oncoming storm.
"Patricia is one of the strongest tropical cyclones globally ever observed based on lowest central pressure and maximum surface (and flight level) wind speed since the dawn of aviation-based reconnaissance in the 1940s," said WeatherBell meteorologist Ryan Maue.
Patricia's winds intensified a whopping 109 mph during Thursday, rising from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane by that evening. It was the fastest intensification ever recorded in the eastern Pacific Ocean, according to meteorologist Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University.
Roberto Ramirez, director of Mexico's National Water Commission, said Hurricane Patricia is powerful enough to lift up automobiles and destroy homes not sturdily built with cement and steel. The storm will also be able to drag people caught outside when it strikes. Those on the coast will be in the most danger, especially people living in the state of Jalisco, which has a population of more than 7.3 million, he said.
In a Category 5 hurricane, a high percentage of framed homes will be destroyed, with total roof failure and wall collapse, according to the hurricane center. Fallen trees and power poles will isolate residential areas. Power outages will last for weeks to possibly months, and most of the area will be uninhabitable for that same period of time.
At 5 p.m. ET, Hurricane Patricia was 60 miles west of Manzanillo, Mexico, moving to the north-northeast at 14 mph, the hurricane center said. The storm is expected to remain an extremely dangerous Category 5 hurricane through landfall, the agency said.
A total of 50,000 people were expected to be evacuated ahead of the storm, according to civil protection agencies in the three Mexican states of Colima, Jalisco, and Nayarit, Vallarta Daily reported. Those regions house the port city of Manzanillo and the town of Puerto Vallarta, a resort town with a large expatriate community from the U.S. and Canada.
