Boston-based AIR Worldwide, the catastrophe risk modeling firm, said insured losses from Hurricane Norbert, which hit Mexico over the weekend, should be minimal.

The firm said that since both the storm's landfalls were along sparsely populated rural areas, with only a small percentage of properties carrying insurance, AIR “does not expect significant insured losses.”

Norbert landed Friday on Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, and by Saturday morning had crossed the Baja to its Southwest coast near Puerto Charley as a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds at landfall of 105 miles per hour.

Maintaining hurricane status as it crossed the Gulf of California, Norbert made a second landfall in Mexico's Sonora state at around 8:00 p.m. local time as a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of near 85 mph.

Tim Doggett, senior research scientist at AIR, said it was fortunate that Norbert's first landfall was along a sparsely populated stretch of the coast about 145 miles northwest of the resort destination of Cabo San Lucas.

“Nevertheless, Norbert was a large system at landfall, and homes in Puerto San Carlos, some 40 miles west-northwest of Puerto Charley, were reportedly knee-deep in water from the system's torrential rains,” said Dr. Doggett. “Roofs were blown off of homes and trees were downed in towns and villages across the region. Authorities evacuated hundreds of people from poorly-constructed wood and sheet metal homes.”

AIR said that while crops in Sonora and Sinaloa–the state adjacent and to the south of Sonora–are likely to suffer from Norbert's winds and rain, damage to insured properties in this largely agricultural and sparsely populated region is likely to be minimal.

Dr. Doggett said the weakened storm was expected yesterday to dump up to two inches of rain as it moved over western Texas and New Mexico.

Neena Saith, catastrophe response manager for London-based Risk Management Solutions, said, “Hurricane Norbert was the fourteenth named storm and seventh hurricane of the East Pacific Hurricane Season, but is the first hurricane to make landfall in the East Pacific.

She noted that Norbert's track had taken it to the north of the high-exposure resort areas in the southern Baja Peninsula, such as Cabo San Lucas, San Jose del Cabo and La Paz, and no damage has been reported from these areas.

This article updated 10:42 a.m.

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