[GoldHawkStar]

Members in southwestern Mexico should brace for this record-breaking Category 5 monster of a hurricane hitting land later today with 200+mph winds.

Quote:

Forecasters say Hurricane Patricia has grown into the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western hemisphere, packing 200 mile per hour winds, and expected to dump up to a foot of rain likely to cause flash floods and mudslides when it makes landfall on Mexico's Pacific coast late Friday.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami reported that the Category 5 storm's maximum sustained winds had grown to 200 miles per hour (mph), making it the strongest storm on record in the eastern Pacific and Atlantic.

"This is an extremely dangerous, potentially catastrophic hurricane," center meteorologist Dennis Feltgen said.

Feltgen said Patricia also poses problems for Texas, especially the western part of the state which is bracing for a rare "back door storm" hitting the western part of the state first, unlike most Gulf hurricanes striking Texas from the southeast. Forecast models indicate that after the storm breaks up over land, remnants of its tropical moisture will likely combine with and contribute to heavy rainfall that is already soaking Texas independently of the hurricane, he said.

"It's only going to make a bad situation worse," he said.

Director of Mexico's National Water Commission Roberto Ramirez says that Hurricane Patricia is powerful enough to lift up automobiles, destroy homes that are not sturdily built with cement and steel and will be able to drag along people caught outside when the storm strikes.

I'll be eyeing the international weather radar throughout the day. Looks like Mexico City will avoid the bad stuff but states like Colima and Jalisco will get hit hard.