Hurricane Simon spent Monday drifting slowly off Mexico's Pacific coast as a Category 2 hurricane, lashing beach towns and mountain communities with heavy rain and powerful winds. By Tuesday morning, the U.S. National Hurricane Center reported that Simon had weakened further to a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds near 90 mph, though officials warned that the danger was far from over.

The storm peaked as a fearsome Category 4 system early Sunday, packing winds near 150 mph while its eye sat about 60 miles west of Manzanillo. Since then, Simon has slowly slid northwestward along the coast at just a few miles per hour, remaining stubbornly close to land even though it has not formally made landfall. Forecasters expect the storm to keep moving slowly through midweek, turn northeast, and come ashore in Sinaloa state on Thursday — likely near the resort city of Mazatlan — as a Category 1 hurricane.

The toll on the ground has already been serious. In Guerrero state, a 71-year-old man died in the capital city of Chilpancingo when a wall collapsed on him, the state's governor said. Tropical Storm Rachel, which struck the Baja California peninsula over the weekend, killed four members of a single family near the city of Ensenada, including two children, according to state prosecutors. Five more people remain missing, and rescue crews used helicopters to pull 32 people to safety from flooded ranches in Ensenada.

Mexico's civil protection agency said Simon's outer bands uprooted trees and electricity poles, blocked roads and flooded homes across Guerrero, including in the port city of Acapulco — the same city that was devastated three years ago by Hurricane Otis. Waves as high as five meters were reported along stretches of the coast, and flooding and landslides struck riverside communities in the states of Michoacan and Colima.

President Claudia Sheinbaum urged residents of Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan and Nayarit to stay in shelter until officials declare the danger over, and nonessential activities have been suspended in threatened areas. In Puerto Vallarta, a city that spent the weekend bracing for extreme weather, businesses reopened Monday as the rain eased — but the international airport suspended operations until Tuesday morning as a precaution.

The forecasts point to a dangerous midweek. The National Hurricane Center expects 5 to 10 inches of rain over west-central Mexico in the coming days, warning of life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides, especially in steep mountain areas. Rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches are expected along Sinaloa's coast, with some spots possibly seeing more than 12 inches as Simon approaches Thursday. Forecasters cautioned that a slow-moving storm like Simon can dump enormous amounts of water even as its winds fade.

Meteorologists say the El Nino phenomenon — warmer-than-normal Pacific waters — is fueling a more intense hurricane season in the region. Simon and Rachel have been a tandem threat: while Rachel's remnants swept north into the U.S. Southwest, swamping Las Vegas with an all-time October daily rainfall record and prompting flood watches across Utah, Idaho and Arizona, Simon has remained pinned to Mexico's west coast.

For comparison, the United States dealt with its own first hurricane of the Atlantic season this month, when Hurricane Isaias came ashore in Florida as a Category 2 storm and charged inland with flooding, tornado threats and widespread power outages.

Officials across Mexico's Pacific coast are urging residents to take the Thursday landfall forecast seriously. Even after weakening, Simon's slow crawl gives it days to drench the same hillsides and river basins, and authorities say the rainfall — not the wind — will be the storm's deadliest weapon.