Heavy rains hit Mexico as Hurricane Polo tracks offshore

Heavy surf and rain lashed southwestern Mexico as "extremely powerful" Hurricane Polo crawls northwest offshore the mainland, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in a bulletin on Thursday.



With maximum sustained winds near 160 miles per hour (260 kph) Polo has been classified last as a Category 4 storm, a notch down from level 5, the highest level on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which it had previously reached.



As the NHC keeps adjusting the storm's force, it said it could see some near-term strengthening and is expected to remain a major hurricane for the next few days.



AccuWeather, a private forecaster, expected Polo to make landfall late Sunday night into Monday, to lose some steam and to reach a Category 2 hurricane as it tracks across the Baja California peninsula north of Cabo San Lucas, where local authorities have already begun restricting beach access and closing the local harbor.