American Marconi Wireless News - Hurricane Kay hits northwest Mexico before weakening

Kay came ashore in a fairly sparsely populated area as a Category One hurricane -- the lowest on a scale of five -- and was later downgraded to a tropical storm.

At 0000 GMT Friday Kay was packing maximum sustained winds of 70 miles (110 kilometers) per hour and located about 30 miles east of Punta Eugenia, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).

"Kay continues to bring very heavy rains to portions of the Baja California Peninsula," it said.

Mexican authorities had earlier opened storm shelters and urged residents to take "extreme precautions" due to the danger of landslides and flooding.

Strong winds and heavy rain were also expected across parts of southern California and southwestern Arizona, the NHC said.

Mexico is regularly lashed by tropical storms on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts, generally between the months of May and November.

This year was the first since 1997 that no tropical cyclones formed in the North Atlantic, Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico in August, according to the NHC.

The deadliest storm to hit Mexico last year was a Category Three hurricane called Grace that killed 11 people in the eastern states of Veracruz and Puebla in August.

D.Kaufman--AMWN