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Tropical Storm Newton Makes Second Landfall in Mexico

Newton rapidly decayed and was no longer a tropical storm by the time it entered Arizona.
Image: Two men ride bikes along the seaside Boulevard of La Paz
Two men ride bikes Tuesday along the seaside Boulevard of La Paz during the passage of Hurricane Newton in Baja California Sur state.RICARDO VALENZUELA / AFP - Getty Images

Hurricane Newton weakened as it made its second landfall Wednesday in Mexico, and by the time it reached Arizona later in the day, it wasn't even a tropical storm anymore.

The storm faded after unleashing 90-mph winds and heavy rains on the tourist resorts of Los Cabos on Tuesday, and the Mexican government discontinued all coastal watches and warnings for the storm Wednesday morning.

By afternoon, southeastern Arizona was getting a lot of rain, but Newton had fallen apart. The National Hurricane Center stopped tracking the storm at 6 p.m. ET, when what was left of it was about 25 miles west-northwest of Nogales, Ariz.

It was a dramatically different story on Tuesday, when Newton smashed windows, felled trees and sparked widespread power failures in Mexico. Tourists huddled in hotels and residents sheltered in their homes as the storm churned over the Baja California peninsula.

Two people died and three others were missing after their shrimp boat capsized in rough seas generated by the hurricane in the Gulf of California, according to The Associated Press.

Although it packed a punch, Newton didn't bring the same level of destruction to Los Cabos as Hurricane Odile, which devastated parts of the luxury resort region in September 2014.

After crossing the Gulf, the storm made its second landfall on mainland Mexico around 3 a.m. (6 a.m. ET) while packing winds of 70 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Had Newton kept its tropical-storm strength all the way to Arizona, it would have been only the sixth storm to do so on record, said Jim Cantore, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel.

The National Weather Service issued flash-flood watches across southern Arizona, New Mexico and far western Texas. But when Newton's remains arrived, the weather service reported, it showed up with only "widespread light to moderate rainfall" of 3 to 4 inches.

Even so, Tucson-area residents were ready. A first supply of sandbags ran out Wednesday morning at the city's Hi Corbett Field, NBC station KVOA reported.

"I thought I'd try to get on the front end of the storm in case I have potential damage," Tucson resident Doug Dorn told the station. "The water could come. It could not come."