Hurricane Paul expected to weaken before hitting land

Hurricane Paul, currently about 415 miles (670 kilometers) southwest of Mexico's Baja peninsula, is expected to weaken before making landfall in a sparsely populated area late on Tuesday, the US National Hurricane Center said

The Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale has current wind speeds of around 120 miles per hour (195 km per hour) and is moving north-northeast at 13 miles per hour (20 km per hour), the center said.

The Mexican government has issued a hurricane warning from Santa Fe northward to Punta Abreojos on the country's western Baja peninsula, the center added. However the storm is not expected to encroach on the popular tourist haven of Los Cabos.

"Paul is expected to produce total rain accumulations of 2 to 4 inches over the southern Baja peninsula with possible isolated amounts of 8 inches," the center said.

Mexico has no important oil installations along the Pacific coast.