Hurricane Bonnie weakens to tropical storm over eastern Pacific

July 8 (UPI) -- Hurricane Bonnie weakened into a tropical storm while traversing the eastern Pacific on Friday after completing a rare crossover from the southern Caribbean earlier this week.

The center of now-Tropical Storm Bonnie was located about 825 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula at 5 p.m. EDT, moving toward the west at 18 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Maximum sustained winds have decreased to 65 mph, with occasional higher gusts, and additional weakening is forecast. Bonnie is now expected to become a post-tropical storm on Saturday and to dissipate completely by Monday.

Along the way, Bonnie became one of the more remarkable hurricanes in recent years.

It started off as the second named system of the year in the Atlantic Basin and developed into the first major hurricane of the 2022 eastern Pacific hurricane season.

In crossing over Central America without breaking apart earlier this week, it became the first crossover storm since November 2016, when Hurricane Otto's circulation remained intact as it traveled over Costa Rica and emerged into the Eastern Pacific as a tropical storm.

There have been close to 20 officially recognized crossover storms, meaning they tracked in both the Eastern Pacific and the Atlantic basins, while another 20 or so storms may have crossed over but were never officially recognized as such, according to Accuweather.