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Hurricane Celia forms in Pacific off Mexico


    MEXICO CITY (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 75 mph, Celia was 365 miles south of the tourist resort of Acapulco and was moving toward the west, away from Mexico, at 7 mph.

    "Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours," the center said.

    Blas, which on Thursday became the second named storm of the Pacific hurricane season, weakened and was downgraded from a tropical storm to a tropical depression. It was 470 miles south of Baja California and was expected to continue to move west, away from the coast.

    In May, Tropical Storm Agatha slammed into the Guatemalan coast and caused flooding and mudslides that killed at least 180 people.

    Mexico's key oil export facilities are in the Gulf of Mexico, well away from Celia's path.

    The U.S. government's top weather agency has predicted the 2010 Atlantic storm season could be the most intense since 2005, when Hurricane Katrina killed more than a thousand people and disrupted oil production by crashing through Gulf of Mexico energy facilities.

    (Reporting by Noel Randewich, Editing by John O'Callaghan)