Hurricane Willa hits Mexico's Pacific coast

Hurricane Willa hits into Mexico’s Pacific coastline on Tuesday evening packing winds of 120 mph (195 kph), buffeting buildings and dumping torrential rain on tourist resorts where thousands of people had moved to safety.

The Category 3 storm will quickly weaken over the next 24 hours as it makes its way across the Sierra Madre range and becomes a rainmaker for northern Mexico and Texas on Wednesday.

But before that happens, Willa will bring life-threatening storm surges, rain and wind to residents on Mexico's Pacific shore, according to the US National Hurricane Center.

Willa, once a Category 5 hurricane, had weakened before landfall, but still had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (195 kilometers per hour).

"Life-threatening storm surge, wind, and rainfall (are) spreading onshore," the US hurricane center said earlier.

After landfall, Willa is expected to weaken quickly as it runs into the mountains, and it will be a rainmaker by the time it crosses the US-Mexico border Wednesday.

Forming Saturday, Willa went from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in two days in what the hurricane center called "explosive" strengthening. In one 24-hour period, its winds spiked by 80 mph.

Willa has been a danger for forecasters as well. An aircraft with the Air Force Reserve's Hurricane Hunters was forced to turn around Monday over concerns for its onboard equipment after a lightning bolt from one of Willa's outer rain bands blasted it, according to the National Hurricane Center.

In a tweet Monday, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said he has asked the National System of Civil Protection to take all steps necessary to protect those in the hurricane's path as well as those affected by Tropical Storm Vicente, a weaker system tracking south of Willa that's also primed to make landfall Tuesday. Vicente likely will be a tropical depression by the time it comes ashore, the hurricane center said.

Willa's landfall will come three years to the day after the strongest hurricane to hit the Pacific coast, Patricia, a Category 5 storm, made landfall in Jalisco.