With steady winds near 200mph, Hurricane Patricia, dubbed the western hemisphere’s strongest storm EVER, is due to slam into the west coast of Mexico in the late afternoon of Friday, October 23, 2015. Comparisons have been made to Typhoon Haiyan, which struck the Philippines in 2013, killing over 6,000 people.
Landfall is predicted to be somewhere along Mexico’s central Pacific coast near the coastal cities of Puerto Vallarta & Manzanilla.
The US National Weather Service has referred to the Category 5 storm as “catastrophic” in an advisory and notes that “After landfall, the center of Patricia is expected to move quickly north-northeastward across western and northern Mexico.”
After Patricia comes ashore, rain showers from the storm are forecast to expand into New Mexico & Texas over the weekend, with some areas expecting from 7 inches to 15 inches of rain during the next 3 days.