The China Mail - Hurricane Polo approaches Mexico, threatens severe damage

Puerto San Carlos, a small fishing port of nearly 6,000 people, lies in the path of the hurricane, which is a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).

The NHC said "life-threatening winds and flash floods" were expected across Mexico's Baja California Sur and Sonora states on Monday and Tuesday.

Only a handful of homes and businesses in Puerto San Carlos, which is in Baja California Sur, had wooden boards up to protect doors and windows on Sunday.

"Let's hope it doesn't hit so hard," Marta Maldonado, a 62-year-old waitress at a seaside restaurant with no protection, told AFP.

"Tomorrow they'll surely put up some boards," she said.

The hurricane is expected to make a second landfall in northwestern Mexico on Monday or Tuesday, the NHC said.

Mexico gets hit by hurricanes every year, both on the Pacific coast and the Atlantic coast, usually between May and November.

The El Nino weather pattern has intensified this year's storm season.

The cyclical climate phenomenon raises surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean and causes global changes in winds and rainfall as well as erratic weather conditions.

F.Jackson--ThChM