simon

Simon caps a Pacific season of record-breaking intensity, as deadly storms wreak havoc from Hawaii to Mexico.

At least two people have died in Mexico after Hurricane Simon and former tropical storm Rachel brought torrential rain and catastrophic flooding to Pacific coast communities.

At a Monday news briefing, Guerrero Governor Evelyn Salgado confirmed that a 71-year-old man had died during Hurricane Simon after a retaining wall collapsed under the weight of intense precipitation.

According to the Guerrero-based news agency IRZA, the man, identified by his family as Albino Moreno Jimenez, had been feeding his animals on the western outskirts of Chilpancingo when a wall came crashing down on him.

A second death was announced later in the day in the state of Baja California along Mexico’s western coast. There, Governor Marina del Pilar said that a young girl had died from the effects of what was once Hurricane Rachel, which peaked in early October as a Category 3 storm.

At least 10 more people remain missing in Baja California, according to the governor. Eight were reported missing in the city of Ensenada, on the Pacific coast, and two in the fishing town of San Felipe on the Gulf of California.

The figures remain preliminary, with local newspaper La Jornada reporting a higher death toll of two in Baja California and 11 missing.

Death toll expected to rise

Rachel made landfall in the Mexican state as a post-tropical cyclone, and its remnants have travelled north through southern California in the southwestern United States.

Hurricane Simon, meanwhile, has churned off the coast of Mexico since the weekend. By late Monday morning, it had weakened from a powerful Category 4 storm to a Category 2.

Its maximum sustained winds had slowed slightly to around 155km/h (100mph), according to the US National Hurricane Center. Its centre was about 115km west-southwest of Cabo Corrientes, a cape in the state of Jalisco, drifting west at 3km/h.

Forecasters predict Simon could make landfall on Thursday or Friday. Hurricane warnings remain in effect for western Mexico, which is vulnerable to landslides and deadly surf conditions as a result of the storm.

Experts warn the death toll from both storms could rise, and officials have called on residents to exercise caution amid the devastation wrought by downed trees, high winds and floodwaters.

The Spanish newspaper El Pais reported the death of a cliff diver, Juan Patines, who was killed in Mazatlan, the northwestern state of Sinaloa, after jumping into the sea on Saturday night.

According to Mexican media, the heavy surf hampered his efforts to return to shore amid dangerous coastal conditions associated with Hurricane Simon. Local authorities later halted cliff-diving at the site due to hazardous sea conditions.

Officials have yet to confirm whether his death was directly linked to Hurricane Simon.

A record Pacific storm season

Rachel and Simon have battered Mexico’s western coast as part of an extraordinary stretch of hurricane activity across the Pacific.

The northeastern and central Pacific Ocean has experienced a record storm season this year, fuelled in part by the El Nino weather phenomenon, which results in warming waters in parts of the region. Twenty-one named storms have been recorded in the Pacific so far.

On Sunday, Simon tipped the region to a historic high for accumulated cyclone energy (ACE), a metric of the combined strength and longevity of tropical storms. This year has already surpassed the previous high set in 2018.

The US island chain of Hawaii has been among the hardest-hit places. In August, Hurricane Lala unleashed ruinous flooding on Hawaii’s Big Island as a Category 1 storm, killing a 93-year-old woman and destroying some 100 homes, according to state officials.

A few weeks later, Hurricane Lowell, a Category 4 hurricane at its peak, struck the Hawaiian islands of Kauai and Niihau, where powerful winds, storm surge and flooding overwhelmed towns and roads.

Roughly 90 percent of Kauai’s power customers were plunged into darkness as a result of electricity outages. At least two deaths were linked to Lowell.

In late September, Hurricane Nolo brought another round of flooding and landslides to the Hawaiian islands, though it did not make landfall.

The Mexican community of Cabo Corrientes faces the risk of a direct hit as the Category 4 storm churns off Jalisco.

Mexican President ‌‌Claudia Sheinbaum has urged residents along the Pacific Ocean to stay indoors as Hurricane Simon’s powerful winds and heavy rains pound coastal communities.

As of Sunday, the hurricane’s eye was moving offshore of Mexico’s Jalisco state, with winds of at least 240km/h (150mph).

Torrential rain has already battered residents living between the Sierra Madre mountain range and the ocean. Communities in hilly and mountainous areas have been warned to brace for mudslides.

Simon reached Category 4 strength, on a scale of five, on Saturday, as part of an unusually active Pacific hurricane season.

“With the approaching impact of Category 4 Hurricane Simon, we urge residents of coastal municipalities ‌‌in Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit and Michoacan to remain sheltered until authorities officially declare that the danger has passed,” Sheinbaum wrote in a post on the social media platform X on Sunday.

In a midday advisory, the United States’ National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned that Simon could produce “additional rainfall totals of 8 to 16 inches (20 to 41 cm) over portions of southwestern Mexico”.

Precipitation totals as high as 76 cm (30 inches) were possible in areas of Michoacan, Colima, and Jalisco until Monday.

It’s not clear whether the storm will make landfall. But the greatest risk of a direct hit lies at the moment with Cabo Corrientes, a town that sits on a cape in Jalisco, jutting into the Pacific Ocean.

Mexico’s National Civil Protection ⁠⁠Coordination (CNPC) placed 28 municipalities in Jalisco and Colima under its highest cyclone alert level, while another 93 municipalities were under a ⁠⁠high alert level, according to civil protection bulletins.

Classes were suspended in the affected areas, and efforts to evacuate residents were under way.

Businesses in popular tourist destinations like Puerto Vallarta boarded up windows and placed sandbags at entrances as the storm approached.

Jalisco’s Governor Pablo Navarro warned that the high-powered hurricane was creating “high-risk marine conditions” along the coast of his state, with waves reaching as high as eight metres (26 feet).

On Sunday, he also shared video on social media of the storm surge crashing onto sidewalks and flooding waterways.

“Here is the current state of Jalisco’s beaches this morning — from Barra de Navidad to Puerto Vallarta — as Hurricane Simon passes through,” he wrote in the video’s caption.

“I ask everyone to heed official instructions, take precautions and avoid putting themselves at risk. The safety of Jalisco’s families is the top priority.”

JIM Davidson has reportedly found love once again with Maria Rice-Mundy, a beauty pageant queen who previously dated Simon Cowell.

It comes just a month after the comedian and former Celebrity Big Brother star, 72, split from his fiancée and called off their planned nuptials.

In September, The Sun revealed how Jim had cancelled his wedding – which was set to be his sixth time tying the knot – to partner of three years Natasha, who is 23 years his junior.

But back on the dating horse already, Jim is said to have been seeing new partner Maria, 60, for “a few weeks”.

A source told The Daily Mail: “Jim’s already fallen big time and posted a picture of her on his Facebook. 

“They’ve been on a few dinner dates and she’s very giggly around him. Jim doesn’t mess about when it comes to the ladies.”

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The Sun has reached out to Jim’s representative for comment.

Maria, a mum of two, dated music mogul Simon Cowell back in the 1980s.

Jim has been married five times and it was set to be six before he called off his wedding to ex Natasha.

The pair were set to wed at Hampton Court Palace – the home of  home of Henry VIII – and lost their £10k deposit when they jilted.

Speaking to The Sun in September, Jim revealed: “There’s no bad blood. Natasha is the most caring and dutiful person. 

“It’s not like we’re splitting up because we don’t love each other anymore.

“It’s a sort of a grown-up separation. The timing’s not right because she has so much time for everybody and how can you knock that?”

He added at the time: “We still speak every other day, but whether we’ll ever find room to see one another again, I don’t know.

“She is very dutiful. She puts family first. And of course she has three children and now a grandson as well. 

“She is just so busy and so I’m very busy as well.”

Dad-of-five Jim met Natasha, who is 23 years his junior, at the Southampton Boat Show in 2023 soon after the breakdown of his fifth marriage.

It was shortly after his split from fifth wife Michelle Cotton, whom he was with for 14 years.

Jim first married his childhood sweetheart Sue Walpole back in 1971, but the union lasted just a year.

He then went on to wed Julie Gullick in 2981, before they divorced in 1986.

TV presenter Alison Holloway was next, but she only stayed married to Jim for two years.

His fourth wife was Page 3 model Tracy Hilton, and they were together for ten years.

Jim’s most recent marriage – before getting engaged to Natasha – was Michelle, whom he married in 2009 and split from in 2023.