Tropical Storm Bud intensified late Sunday afternoon into a Category 1 hurricane some 254 miles (410 km) west of the Pacific coast of Mexico, the country's weather service said.
With maximum sustained winds of 75 miles (121 km) per hour and gusts of 93 miles (150 km) per hour, Bud was moving northwest at 9.3 miles (15 km) per hour.
The storm is the second of the 2018 Pacific hurricane season after Tropical Storm Aletta, which is moving west away from land. On the Atlantic side, Subtropical Storm Alberto slammed into the Mexican Caribbean in late May, forcing the evacuation of oil workers in the Gulf of Mexico and killing almost 10 people in Cuba and in the U.S. Southeast.
Within hours, Bud was due to generate intense storms in the Mexican states that border the Pacific Ocean, such as Jalisco, Colima and Guerrero.
The Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said Bud would start to weaken by late Tuesday or early Wednesday.
Satellite picture of a hurricane, Pixabay
There are no oil installations on the Pacific side of Mexico.
Although authorities established a surveillance zone to follow the trajectory of the hurricane northward along Mexico's western coast, there were no evacuations of tourist spots like Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas.
"People in the zones of the states with forecast of rains, wind and waves, including maritime navigation, are recommended to take extreme precautions and to comply with the recommendations issued by the authorities," Mexico's meteorological service said in a statement. (VOA)