But Mexican officials warned that it still posed a serious threat.

The storm's top winds decreased to 165 kilometers (105 miles) per hour, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said, adding it would continue to weaken prior to making landfall as a hurricane.

Early Tuesday, it had been on the threshold of becoming a Category Five hurricane, the top of the Saffir-Simpson scale.

But Mexican National Weather Service meteorologist Dario Rodriguez told AFP that Jimena "maintains a high level of danger."

The hurricane was expected to make landfall between 1200 and 1300 GMT on the southern tip of the peninsula and on central Baja California Thursday, forecasters said.

Jimena lost strength a day after howling winds and strong rains lashed Baja California, sending tourists fleeing from resort towns, although many villagers ignored appeals to evacuate and hunkered down to tough it out.

"This phenomenon is unprecedented. In the history of the peninsula, we have not had a storm of the force of Jimena," Jose Gajon, director of the Baja California Sur civil protection service, said in a local radio interview.

"Many places are totally inundated and cut off and that's even before the storm has really made its presence felt."

The federal government discontinued its hurricane warning for the southern tip of the peninsula but it remained in effect elsewhere in Baja California.

As last-minute thrill-seekers dipped into the massive surf of Palmilla Beach, officials struggled to convince local inhabitants of the poor, largely arid and mountainous spit of land that they must seek emergency shelter.

More than 15,000 families deemed to be living in high-risk zones -- prone to flooding or near the coast -- were evacuated on Tuesday, but thousands more remained.

Across the region, the local hotel association estimated that some 7,000 tourists would have left or been evacuated by the time the storm arrived.

The "Mariner of the Seas" cruise ship -- the second-largest in the world -- cancelled a scheduled stop at the upscale Los Cabos resort destination with some 5,000 passengers aboard.

As the first major gusts hit, residents of Los Cabos boarded up their homes and stocked up on last-minute provisions before rushing home to ride out the storm.

But in nearby Puerto San Carlos, a fishing village of 4,000 people further north and directly on Jimena's path, work continued as normal at a local sardine plant.

"We are still not prepared. They just told us today to start bringing people to shelters," a laborer told AFP.

Regional authorities prepared 147 temporary shelters stocked with water and food supplies that were equipped with medical and psychological aid.

In Los Cabos, which is mostly frequented by American tourists, luxury hotels had sluggish activity, while beaches, ports and the airport were closed to the public there and throughout the state.

Over 2,000 foreign tourists left Los Cabos on Monday and Tuesday, out of the more than 8,000 present there.

Jimena was expected to bring up to 15 centimeters (six inches) of rain in some isolated areas, and 13 to 25 centimeters over the southern half of the peninsula and portions of Western Mexico.

These rains, the NHC said, "could produce life-threatening flash floods and mudslides."

A "dangerous" storm surge, coupled with "large and dangerous battering waves" will unleash significant coastal flooding along the Baja California peninsula, the Center added.

Churning north-northwestward near 20 kph, the storm was centered 110 km south-southeast of Cabo San Lazaro as of 0900 GMT, forecasters said.

Meanwhile, a disorganized Tropical Storm Erika inched closer to the Northern Leeward Islands, where it was expected to make landfall or pass close by "during the next day or so," the NHC said.

Island governments across the region issued storm warnings in preparation for the arrival of Erika, which was moving westward at seven kph (five mph) with top winds at 85 kph some 455 km east-southeast of the Northern Leeward Islands.

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