Kristy explodes into a strong Category 5 hurricane after rapidly intensifying in the Eastern Pacific

Hurricane Kristy continued to strengthen on Thursday, reaching the top level of the Saffir-Simpson scale as a very strong Category 5 storm.

Fortunately, the Eastern Pacific storm is moving further away from the coast of Mexico and poses no threat to the country.

Kristy was born from the remnants of former Tropical Storm Nadine, which strengthened into a new storm on Monday after crossing Mexico and reaching the eastern Pacific Ocean. Since this was not Nadine's original edition, the NHC assigned the next name on the list of names to this pool.

Nadine made landfall near Belize City, Belize, on Saturday afternoon with sustained winds of 60 miles per hour. After moving inland across Central America and Mexico, the storm weakened and dissipated on Sunday before its remnants appeared off the Pacific coast of southern Mexico.

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What is the forecast for Hurricane Kristy?

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As of Thursday afternoon, Hurricane Kristy is churning at Category 5 strength with winds of 160 miles per hour. According to the NHC, Kristy's strength is expected to fluctuate through Thursday, and although the storm quickly intensified into a monster storm this week, Kristy is in the process of reversing course, with rapid weakening expected to begin Thursday evening or Friday. Kristy is expected to revert back into a tropical storm by the weekend and then dissipate early next week.

Kristy is moving west at about 16 miles per hour and is expected to move west to west-northwest through Thursday. After that, slower movement from northwest to north-northwest is expected through late Friday, according to the NHC.

The FOX Forecast Center said the storm is not expected to impact land areas as it remains over the open waters of the eastern Pacific, but large waves caused by Kristy will impact parts of the western coast of the Baja California peninsula later this week and beyond Weekend.

“These waves are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” the NHC warned.

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