Hurricane Bud nears Puerto Vallarta

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico?? Hurricane Bud lost strength as it moved closer to Mexico's Pacific Coast and was forecast to hit land south of the popular tourist town of Puerto Vallarta Friday night, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Bud weakened overnight from a powerful Category 3 storm, and had dropped to a Category 1 with 75 mph winds by Friday afternoon.

The storm is expected to weaken to a tropical storm as it hits land, then move a little inland and then make a U-turn and head back out into the Pacific.

Rain, rather than wind, could be the big threat, with the center warning of the "potential for life-threatening mudslides" in steep terrain inland.

The government of Jalisco state prepared hundreds of cots and dozens of heavy vehicles like bulldozers that could be needed to move debris.

Officials in Puerto Vallarta said they were in close contact with managers of the hundreds of hotels in the city in case tourists needed to move to eight emergency shelters. It said the sea along the city's famous beachfront was calm, but swimming had been temporarily banned as a precaution.

The hurricane is the Pacific's first of the 2012 season.

Story: US: 4-8 Atlantic hurricanes expected this season

Located about 75 miles west of Manzanillo, the hurricane was moving north at around 7 mph.

Bud is expected to soak the states of Michoacan, Colima and Jalisco and southern Nayarit with around 6 to 8 inches of rain.

In some places, the storm could dump as much as 15 inches of rain.

Most of Mexico's oil platforms and exporting ports are in the Gulf of Mexico and affected by storms in the Atlantic, where forecasters are expecting a "near normal" hurricane season this year with up to 15 tropical storms and four to eight hurricanes.

A separate storm was pounding much of Cuba and the Bahamas on Friday. Cuba's civil defense agency reported that a French citizen, Alain Manaud, and Silvestre Fortun Alvarez of Cuba were missing after trying to cross rain-swollen rivers, according to the government's Prensa Latina news agency. It said a search for them was continuing.

An official at the French Embassy in Havana said Manaud was 66 and had lived in Cuba for several years. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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