Hurricane Marie, located several hundred miles off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, is expected to maintain a west-northwest heading through mid-week, remaining safely offshore the Mexican Pacific coast.
Marie is a large Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale., and will undergo fluctuations in intensity due to the replacement of its eyewall, a common occurrence in intense hurricanes.
By mid-week, Marie will have moved into a more stable (i.e., air is less prone to rise and support thunderstorms) and drier atmosphere and over cooler water, inducing steady weakening to a remnant low by the weekend.
While not directly affecting land, large swells from a south-southeast direction will begin to impact Southern California beaches Tuesday through Thursday. The National Weather Service in Oxnard, California breaks down the potential impacts below.
According to NWS-Oxnard, this could be the largest surf event seen in recent years, including a rare high surf event for the beaches of southern Santa Barbara County.
The bottom line from the NWS: "Swimmers and inexperienced surfers should stay out of the water. Stay off rocks and jetties and away from the water's edge to avoid being swept away by sneaker waves." According to NBC-4 in Los Angeles there were 178 water rescues along Orange County beaches alone on Saturday.
The latest forecast path and wind speeds from the National Hurricane Center.
So, where exactly is the cyclone's center located now? If you're plotting the storm along with us, the information depicted in the map above provides the latitude/longitude coordinates, distance away from the nearest land location, maximum sustained winds and central pressure (measured in millibars).
This infrared satellite image shows how cold (and therefore how high) the cloud tops are. Brighter orange and red shadings concentrated near the center of circulation signify a healthy tropical cyclone.
Marie strengthened into the eighth hurricane of the eastern Pacific hurricane season Saturday morning.
Marie developed from a tropical depression to a tropical storm on August 22, thereby becoming the 13th named storm in a busy eastern Pacific hurricane season.
By August 24, Marie's wind speeds increased to 160 mph, making Marie a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale, the first such intensity hurricane in the eastern Pacific since Hurricane Celia in June 2010.