Hurricane Vance is rapidly intensifying and could be a Category 3 off the coast of Mexico.

MIAMI (AP) — Vance became a hurricane Friday and the National Hurricane Center said it would strengthen rapidly as it moved closer to Mexico’s Pacific coast.

Vance was a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph (150 km/h) as it moved about 455 miles (730 kilometers) south-southwest of Acapulco, and could become a major Category 3 hurricane before the end of Friday, the center said.

It was moving north-northwest at nearly 5 mph (8 km/h), and this movement is expected to continue through the weekend, approaching the Puerto Vallarta area by Monday. The hurricane’s outer bands were already channeling strong winds and rough seas toward Mexico’s Gulf of Tehuantepec, the center said.

It was an intense hurricane season in the Pacific Ocean, with storms rolling out in an assembly line fashion near Hawaii and Mexico as El Niño terms worsened by global warming create unusual weather, like this week severe flooding and tornadoes striking the southwestern United States and the extension drought in the Central American dry corridor.

Vance would be the seventh consecutive major hurricane this year in the Pacific, after Nolo, Odalys, Polo, Rachel, Simon and Trudy. The World Meteorological Organization’s Hurricane Committee does not use less common names beginning with Q, U, X, Y and Z.