MANZANILLO, Mexico — Hurricane Simon skirted Mexico’s Pacific coast on Sunday, halting flights at resort airports and prompting President Claudia Sheinbaum to urge millions of coastal residents to stay indoors as destructive winds and flooding rains lashed the shoreline.
Simon was moving north-northwest at about 5 mph just offshore, with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center’s 11 p.m. ET advisory on Sunday — a Category 3 storm that had weakened from Category 4 strength earlier in the day.
The international airport in Puerto Vallarta, a resort city on Bahía de Banderas, suspended operations as the storm moved along the coast, and flights were also suspended at Manzanillo airport, the Associated Press reported.
Earlier forecasts had projected a Sunday landfall, but Simon’s track shifted. Forecasters now expect the storm to remain offshore through Monday, though models are split on whether its center will move inland or stay out at sea.
“Destructive winds and flooding rains continue along the coast,” the hurricane center said.
Laura Velázquez Alzúa, national coordinator of Mexico’s Civil Protection Agency, said the hurricane remained “very close to the Mexican coast,” with strong winds, high waves and storm surge expected to continue through Monday, particularly along the northern coast of Jalisco state.
Sheinbaum urged residents of coastal municipalities in Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit and Michoacán to “remain sheltered until authorities officially declare that the danger has passed,” writing on X that precautionary evacuations were continuing and residents should stay off the streets. Mexico’s meteorological service warned of exceptionally heavy rainfall — 8 to 15 inches, with isolated totals near 25 inches — and waves reaching up to nine meters, the service’s director Fabián Vázquez said. Police in Puerto Vallarta closed the boardwalk and urged tourists to seek shelter.
