Hurricane Ivo Heads to Mexico, Seen Losing Punch

Hurricane Ivo headed for Mexico`s Baja California peninsula on Friday but was expected to weaken to a tropical storm.

Hurricane Ivo headed for Mexico's Baja California peninsula on Friday but was expected to weaken to a tropical storm before making landfall in a sparsely populated desert area in the coming days.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Ivo had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph), making it a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir Simpson scale.

Ivo, some 350 miles (560 km) south of the beach and golf resort of Los Cabos, was seen curving toward the peninsula in the next 72 hours but losing some punch later on Friday to become a tropical storm, the center said.

The hurricane was not forecast to make a direct hit on Los Cabos, which is popular with U.S. and Canadian tourists, instead hitting the peninsula farther to the north.

The area has no oil installations and is best known for its cactus forests.

Hurricane Henriette slammed into Los Cabos earlier this month, killing a two fishermen and a foreign tourist.

Henriette also flooded northern Mexico with driving rain, raging over the farming states of Sonora and Sinaloa.