Storms To The West, East, Mexico Prepares

With storms to the east and a budding hurricane to the west, northern Mexico prepared Thursday for battering winds, waves and rain.

Tropical Storm Flossie, with sustained winds of 65 mph and gusts up to 80 mph, crept up Mexico’s Pacific Coast on Thursday, headed for a close encounter with Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula.

The storm was on a northwesterly track that would skirt the tip of the peninsula barring a change in direction.

Forecasters expected the hurricane to turn out to sea rather than head north to California.

Meanwhile, officials on Mexico’s eastern coast were preparing for the arrival of a weather center that grew into Tropical Storm Gabrielle earlier in the day.

By mid-afternoon, Gabrielle was centered about 40 miles east-southeast of the fishing village of La Pesca in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, about 170 miles south of Brownsville, Texas.

Looming far out in the Atlantic was Tropical Storm Felix. It carried winds of 70 mph and had the potential to become a hurricane. It was on a track that would take it north of Puerto Rico.

At 5 p.m. EDT, Felix was centered near 18.3 north latitude and 51.7 west longitude, or about 650 miles east of the Leeward Islands in the eastern Caribbean. It was moving west-northwest near 20 mph.