Hurricane John came ashore near Cabo del Este on the
southern tip of Baja California in Mexico at around 10 p.m. (8 p.m.
local time) Sept. 1 as a Category 2 storm, with sustained winds
clocking in near 110 mph.
Once a dangerous
Category 4 storm off Mexico's West Coast, the downgraded storm
dumped several inches of rain causing flooding in Acapulco and then
sideswiped Puerto Vallarta on its way to a direct hit on the Baja
Peninsula.
Residents and
tourists in the resort towns of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del
Cabo were hunkering down in hotels and shelters to wait out the
storm. Various news outlets stated that the peninsula's airport had
been closed in anticipation of the storm but officials could not be
reached to confirm the report. The only other way out is the
1,056-mile, two-lane Transpeninsular Highway (Mexico Highway 1)
that stretches the length of the peninsula from Cabo San Lucas to
Tijuana on the U.S. border.
Meanwhile, traveling
almost parallel to Hurricane John but farther out in the Pacific
was Tropical Storm Kristy, with sustained winds around 50 mph.
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center predicted that the
smaller storm could eventually be absorbed by John.
John and Kristy are
numbers 10 and 11 in the 2006 Pacific hurricane season, which
officially runs from May 15 to Nov. 30. Both became hurricanes,
ranking them as the sixth and seventh hurricanes in the Pacific
basin, although Kristy has since been downgraded to a tropical
storm.
Ernesto
Drenches East Coast
Back in the
relatively quiet Atlantic basin, Tropical Storm Ernesto made
landfall near the North/South Carolina border at around 11:30 p.m.
Aug. 31 near Long Beach, N.C., (about 70 miles from Myrtle Beach,
S.C., and 35 miles from Wilmington, N.C.). The storm had sustained
winds near 70 mph, just under hurricane-force winds. (For more
on this story, including a revised outlook for the 2006 season,
seeStorm experts revise predictions to reduce 2006
forecast.)
Of major concern all
along the East Coast was the drenching rains left in Ernesto's
wake. Official rain totals reported by the NHC included 9.71 inches
in Cape Fear, N.C.; 6.20 inches in Myrtle Beach, S.C.; 6.64 inches
at Witts Orchard, Va.; and 6.74 inches in Rock Island,
Fla.
The remnants of the
storm were expected to dump heavy amounts of rain from throughout
the Mid-Atlantic region over the Labor Day weekend, including parts
of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia
and West Virginia.
And Farther
Abroad
In the western
Pacific, Super Typhoon Ioke, now a Category 4 storm with winds of
at least 150 mph, made a direct hit on Wake Island Aug. 31 as a
Category 5 storm, with wind speeds topping more than 165
mph.
As of yet, there have
been no reports from the U.S. territory, which is home to a U.S.
Air Force base and a scientific outpost, as to any impact the storm
may have had. However, prior to its arrival, forecasters had said
they expected the extremely dangerous storm to destroy everything
on the 2.5-square-mile island not made of concrete.
Wake Island is
located about 2,300 miles west of Honolulu, midway between Hawaii
and Japan, and is home to close to 200 mostly military personnel
residents.
To
contact TravelWeekly.com's managing editor Kimberly Scholz, send
e-mail to [email protected].
Get
More!
To
keep track of the 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season and how it is
affecting the travel industry, click here. More links will be added as articles go live on
TravelWeekly.com.