MEXICO CITY, June 20 (Reuters) - Hurricane Celia, the first hurricane of the 2010 Pacific season, formed in the eastern Pacific Ocean near Mexico on Sunday but was headed away from land, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
A Category 1 hurricane with winds up to 80 mph (130 kph), Celia was 370 miles (600 km) south of the tourist resort of Acapulco and was moving toward the west, away from Mexico, at 7 mph (11 kph).
"Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours," the center said.
Mexico’s key oil export facilities are in the Gulf of Mexico, well away from Celia’s path.
The second named storm of the hurricane season, Blas, weakened and was downgraded from a tropical storm to a tropical depression. It was 525 miles (845 km) south of Baja California and was expected to keep moving west, away from the coast.
The U.S. government’s weather agency has predicted the 2010 Atlantic storm season could be the most intense since 2005, when Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,000 people and disrupted oil production by crashing through Gulf of Mexico energy facilities. In May, Tropical Storm Agatha slammed into the Guatemalan coast and caused flooding and mudslides that killed at least 180 people.
