Ignacio nears hurricane strength
Storm expected to hit Baja California early Sunday
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Satellite image of Tropical Storm Ignacio taken Saturday at 7:56 p.m. EDT
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(CNN) -- Tropical Storm Ignacio inched toward Baja California and hurricane strength early Saturday afternoon.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, urged residents to quickly finish preparations for the coming storm.
At 2 p.m. [5 p.m. EDT], Ignacio was 100 miles [160 kilometers] southeast of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, moving northwest near 6 mph [10 kph] with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph [112 kph] -- just below hurricane strength of 74 mph [118 kph].
Ignacio, the Pacific hurricane season's ninth tropical storm, would be its first hurricane.
The Mexican government issued hurricane warnings for the southern Baja California Peninsula from south of La Paz on the east coast to south of Santa Fe on the west coast. Tropical storm warnings remained in effect from Bahia Magdalena to Santa Fe and from San Evaristo to La Paz.
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said the storm's center would make landfall or pass near the tip of the peninsula Sunday morning and urged residents to complete "preparations to protect life and property in the hurricane warning area" quickly.
The NHC also warned that "conditions will deteriorate over a large area well before the center [of the storm] reaches the coast."
The center predicted six to 12 inches of rainfall in the warning area and said the rains could cause dangerous flash floods and mudslides.
Battering waves could push coastal surge floods to two to four feet above normal near and to the east of landfall, the NHC said.
