CANCUN, Mexico — Hurricane Rina plodded westward late Wednesday at near 6 mph (9 kph) on a path toward Mexico’s tourist beaches, its threat a real one to people on the Yucatan Peninsula but far diminished from what it had been earlier in the day. Authorities evacuated some fishing communities and closed schools along the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, and NASA cut short an undersea laboratory mission near Key Largo, Florida, bringing the crew back to land.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) has predicted the storm will hit the well-known tourist zone on Thursday after strengthening over the next 48 hours.

Rina is forecast to remain a hurricane as it sweeps along Mexico’s most popular tourist destinations Cancun, Cozumel and the Riviera Maya, on Thursday, though forecasters predicted it would continue to weaken.

Hundreds of residents from the fishing town of Punta Allen, south of Tulum, were taken to emergency shelters and a smaller group was evacuated from the atoll of Banco Chinchorro on Tuesday.

Luh McDevitt, 56, a furniture and interior designer in Cozumel, said her family was fitting hurricane shutters to the house and securing furniture.

“I am not really scared,” said the Cincinnati, Ohio, native who has lived in Cozumel since 2000. “Hurricane Andrew in 1992 was a Category 5. The worst part of the hurricane is after. We didn’t have electric in our house for three weeks.”

State Tourism Director Juan Carlos Gonzalez Hernandez said there were about 83,000 tourists in the state, with about 45,000 of those on a stretch of coast south of Cancun that includes Tulum and Playa de Carmen, and almost 28,000 in Cancun.

There were only about 1,719 tourists in Cozumel, and many of them were leaving, Gonzalez Hernandez said.

At least eight cruise ships were changing itineraries away from the storm’s path, said Carnival Cruise Lines spokesman Vance Gulliksen.

The area was badly damaged by Hurricane Wilma in 2005, when Cancun’s famous white-sand beaches were largely washed away. Insurance officials estimated total damage at $3 billion.

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Bill weakened to a Category 3 storm early Thursday, but forecasters cautioned warm Atlantic waters could feed its growth back to Category 4 by Friday, meaning winds of 131 mph to 155 mph.

“It’s moving over waters of 84, 85 degrees Fahrenheit, which could provide some fuel to it. We still think it could restrengthen back into a Category 4. The environmental conditions appear to be right,” said Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center.

The watch for Bermuda means hurricane winds could strike within 36 hours. It comes after former U.S. President Bill Clinton and his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, arrived in Bermuda on Wednesday for a 3- or 4-day getaway.

The government urged islanders to secure boats and finish other storm preparations by Friday afternoon. Officials put up warning signs at beaches along the south shore because of large swells and dangerous rip currents expected ahead of the storm. Home Affairs Minister Walter Roban urged people not to swim until further notice.

Some flight delays are possible, said Aaron Adderley, general manager of Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport.

“At this point, it’s fair to say that one can expect some disruption — but to what extent, remains to be seen,” he said.

The storm is expected to pass between Bermuda and the U.S. eastern coast on Saturday. Forecasters warned large swells generated by the hurricane could cause extremely dangerous surf and rip currents at beaches on one of the final weekends of summer.

“Those swells are known to be deadly,” Blake said. “It’s just going to be very dangerous this weekend.”

The center’s five-day track showed Bill staying well out to sea off the southern and northern U.S. coast. Bill was forecast to inch closer to shore as it moves north but only come close to landfall in Canada’s Maritime provinces before veering back out into the North Atlantic.

As of 11 a.m. Thursday, Bill was centered about 380 miles north of the Leeward Islands and about 695 miles south-southeast of Bermuda. The hurricane was moving northwest near 18 mph.

Bill is the first Atlantic hurricane this year after a quiet start to the season that runs from June through November. The Miami center lowered its Atlantic hurricane outlook on Aug. 6 after no named tropical storms developed in the first two months.

The revised prediction was for three to six hurricanes, with one or two becoming major storms with winds over 110 mph. Researchers at Colorado State University have also lowered their Atlantic season forecast to four hurricanes, two of them major.

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Hurricane Bill forms; Guillermo weakens

MIAMI — Hurricane Bill has formed in the Atlantic, the first hurricane of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Guillermo has weakened to a tropical storm far out in the Pacific.

Hurricane Bill’s maximum sustained winds are near 75 mph. The National Hurricane Center expects Bill to get stronger and could become a major hurricane by Wednesday.

Bill is centered about 1,160 miles east of the Lesser Antilles and is moving quickly west-northwest near 22 mph.

Elsewhere, Tropical Guillermo’s maximum sustained winds are near 70 mph with the storm expected to continue weakening. Guillermo is centered about 815 miles east of Hilo, Hawaii, and moving west-northwest near 15 mph.

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Hurricane [$3.99 - iTunes link] is a hurricane tracking app for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Back when I lived in Florida, hurricanes were a yearly concern. Now that I am in Texas, they don’t play such a prominent role but they are still something to think about. Hurricane is an app designed to try to take away some of that concern.

I have actually had this app for well over 4 months, but I wanted to wait till the middle of hurricane season so I could see it in action. And let me say, the app generally performs very well. The app starts off with a screen where you can select Atlantic or Pacific hurricanes, and then gives you a list of the active storms as well as completed storms. When you click on a storm, you can look at the radar loop, projected path, tracking map, satellite images, and bulletins. All of this allows you to try to keep on top of these potentially devastating storms.

In addition, you can look a historical storms (from last year going back to 1851) and specific data feeds (like satellite images) from a variety of sources. For people with little hurricane experience, you can also see how hurricanes are rated on the Saffir-Simpson scale. While it certainly isn’t necessary, it would be nice to have some sort of hurricane checklist included (what to do, or not do, when one hits, for example).

Unfortunately, the app doesn’t provide any customization options. You can specify your location and only look at storms that may hit you. You can’t mark a storm as a “favorite” to keep close tabs on it. You don’t get push notifications when a storm status changes (or a new alert is released). These are all kinds of features that would put this app into an elite category. In addition, there is no ability to sort or search the historical data. I can’t look for all historical Cat 5 storms that have him Florida, for example. If I am curious about how frequently a specific area has been hit, I can’t only include storm that hit Texas. The historical data is nice, but in the present form it is a little unwieldy unless you know exactly what you are looking for.
Conclusion

As hurricane tracking apps go, this is a nicely designed app, giving you a lot of the pertinent and critical information. If you live in a hurricane prone area, it could certainly be worth the $3.99 price. However, the app is missing some features that would move it into a premium app category (which, I should note, I haven’t seen in other hurricane apps as well).

(In the interest of full disclosure, I received a promo code for this app.)

Pros

* Up to date hurricane tracking and projections
* Detailed data regarding hurricanes
* Historical data included

Cons

* No to choose “favorites”
* No push notifications
* No location based data
* No search or sort feature for historical data

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