Hurricane Willa has smashed into Mexico’s Pacific coast with 120 mph winds, forcing thousands of residents to evacuate and leaving beach towns without power.

The US National Hurricane Center warned heavy rainfall from the Category 3 storm is likely to cause “life-threatening flash flooding and landslides over much of southwestern and west-central Mexico” as it was downgraded to a tropical storm overnight.

Rainfall totals of six to 12 inches are expected along the coast with up to 18 inches in some parts of Jalisco, Nayarit and Sinaloa states.

The geography of the area, where beaches quickly transition to mountainous terrain, increases the risk of flash floods.

Willa made landfall near Isla del Bosque and about 50 miles southeast of Mazatlan, a resort city with a population of around 500,000 people.

Damage assessments were limited due to darkness and poor communications with further information expected in the morning. No deaths have been reported, an official said.

A police spokesperson in the Sinaloa town of Escuinapa warned the storm had been “very strong” and knocked down trees, lamps and walls.

More than 4,250 people were evacuated from coastal towns in Sinaloa and 58 shelters were set up ahead of the storm, emergency officials said.

Schools in the states of Durango and Nayarit were also closed yesterday as a safety precaution.

However, not everyone was willing to leave the area. Alberto Hernanadez, a hotel worker in a town near where the storm made landfall, told Associated Press: "We've had rain all day. There is nobody in the streets. Everything is closed.

"But not everyone wanted to leave, even though authorities made it clear that he who stays does so at his own peril."

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Luis Felipe Puente, head of the country’s Civil Protection agency, said roads would be open on Wednesday and praised the evacuation effort.

“The population took cover in time and this is the result,” he said.

Hurricane Willa is the 10th major hurricane of the 2018 Pacific season, tying 1992 for the most major hurricanes in the northeast Pacific in one year.

This season is also one of the only ones to see three Category 5 hurricanes, tied with 1994 and 2018, after Willa was upgraded on Monday.

The increasing numbers of major hurricanes and the intensity of tropical storms is an expected consequence of warmer ocean waters due to climate change, according to experts.

"There is a pretty strong consensus [among scientists] that the frequency of high category events, in most parts of the world, should go up as a result of climate warming," Kerry A Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at MIT, told CNN in response to Hurricane Michael earlier this month.

"The phrase 'natural disaster' is an attempt to lay blame where blame really doesn't rest," he added, warning against using the term in media reports.

Although Willa was downgraded before it made landfall on the Pacific coast on Tuesday evening, the storm was still one of the most powerful hurricanes to hit Mexico in recent years.