Hurricane Patricia was bearing down on the southwestern coast of Mexico Friday, with maximum sustained winds continuing to blow at more than 200 miles an hour, making it the most powerful storm to ever hit the east Pacific.

Patricia started as a tropical storm but turned into a dangerous Category 5 hurricane early Friday, threatening to wreak havoc on a coastline that is popular with tourists.

In the latest update on Patricia from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it said the hurricane is likely to make landfall in the next few hours with the worst conditions to be expected this afternoon and evening.

Earlier, the NOAA said it had “intensified at an incredible rate” late Thursday. The agency predicted “potentially catastrophic landfall in southwestern Mexico later today,” and said it was an “extremely dangerous storm.” Up to 20 inches of rain are expected over the Mexican states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Michoacán, and Guerrero through Saturday.

Gifs like this do the job of sending a chill:

And this image:

Twisted Alley Chasers, a group of individuals who chase weather phenomena, said in a blog on Friday that Patricia’s 200 mph sustained winds are a world-wide record. “No building on Earth is designed to handle winds of this magnitude, therefore total and complete devastation is likely where the core of the Category 5 winds makes landfall in Mexico.”

From Mexico, one Twitter user said his hotel had given guests time to pack and head to the shelter, warning them that their status had changed:

Comparisons were made to the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, which Wikipedia describes as the “strongest and most intense hurricane to make landfall in the United States and the Atlantic Basin in recorded history. “

The category 5 hurricane killed over 400 people in the Florida Keys, among them 259 World War I veterans who had been working on a highway project. A train sent to rescue them was swept off the track by the storm.

The World Meteorological Association said the storm was comparable with Typhoon Hainan, which devastated the Philippines a few years ago.

The National Hurricane Center said its models are showing the development of a cyclone near the Texas coast over the weekend, which should be non-tropical in nature. However, the cyclone is likely to draw large amounts of moisture from Patricia, possibly causing heavy rainfall over parts of Texas close to the northwestern Gulf of Mexico.

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