MEXICO CITY – Ileana has weakened to a tropical depression, the National Hurricane Center said Sunday.
The tropical storm formed Thursday off Mexico’s Pacific coast as it moved ashore and made landfall on the coast of the Mexican state of Sinaloa on Saturday, a day after it battered resort-lined Los Cabos.
On Sunday, winds dropped to 35 mph, NOAA said in an advisory, as Ileana was nearly 30 miles southwest of Los Mochis, Mexico, moving west-northwest at 2 mph. It also predicts the storm will be a remnant low – a post-tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds of less than 34 knots.
As of Friday, a warning had been in effect for parts of the Baja California peninsula, including Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo.
Juan Manuel Arce Ortega, of Los Cabos Civil Protection, said the municipalities of La Paz and Los Cabos had canceled classes in schools because of the storm.
Authorities prepared 20 temporary shelters in San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas, according to Los Cabos Civil Protection.
At the Hacienda Beach Club and Residences in Cabo San Lucas, concierge Alan Galvan said the rain came late Thursday night and has been constant. “The rain is not very strong at the moment, but the waves are choppy,” he said.
“Guests are very calm and have already come down for coffee,” Galvan said. “There are some flights cancelled, but everything is ok at the moment.”
The rain remained constant throughout Los Cabos Friday afternoon, with several roads flooded and some resorts piling up sandbags on their perimeters. Some people still walked around boat docks with their umbrellas.
“The priority must be safety, starting with the workers. We must always check our colleagues who live in risk areas,” said Lyzzette Liceaga, a tour operator in Los Cabos.
Ileana was the only active tropical storm in the National Weather Service’s eastern Pacific basin on Friday. In the Atlantic basin, post-tropical cyclone Francine brought heavy rain to parts of the southern United States, and Tropical Storm Gordon formed on Friday in the Atlantic, with forecasters saying it is expected to remain over open water for several days.