Weather
June 1st marked the start of the hurricane season, and exactly a week in storm Aletta has become the first hurricane of the 2018 season
Update: We now have a category 4 storm in the pacifichttps://t.co/pTbIU2Ii0F https://t.co/MaoRwyIFdn
— NWS (@NWS) June 8, 2018
Aletta is currently a category four storm, traveling with max winds of 120 miles per hour south of Mexico, the National Hurricane Centre has confirmed. The tropical storm severely strengthened over the first 24 hours and was upgraded to a category one hurricane on Thursday. Aletta is expected to remain a hurricane, and strengthen through Saturday before weakening and being downgraded to a tropical storm on Sunday.
Dan Kottlowski, from AccuWeather, said: “Aletta should become a hurricane Friday or during the upcoming weekend.”
At 2 pm on Thursday local time, the hurricane was traveling an estimated 600 miles south of the Mexican city Cabo San Lucas but is not expected to pose a threat to land as it travels in a northwesterly direction.
Forecasters have been monitoring any showers and thunderstorms appearing south of Mexico’s coastline since last weekend as they desperately attempted to predict whether Aletta could pose a danger to the region. Rip currents and rough seas could strike beaches from Acapulco to Mazatlan and southern Baja California thanks to Aletta’s force.
Forecaster AccuWeather has predicted a second tropical threat could develop towards the south of southern Mexico into the weekend or next week and it is understood this threat could track closer to the nation’s coastline than Aletta.
Hurricane season takes place from June 1 to November 30 with peak activity towards the end of August.
