Hurricane Patricia has made landfall and appears to be packing a punch near the seaside town of Tenacatita - please be aware that the video includes some swearing in Spanish.

While thousands evacuate, a few are rushing toward the storm. Josh Morgerman, external describes himself as a "hardcore hurricane chaser". 

Patricia becomes only the second Category Five hurricane to make landfall in the Pacific.

The other was an un-named storm that killed close to 1,800 people near Manzanillo, Mexico, in 1959.

Patricia touched down only a few kilometres from the same city.

Image source, AFP

The US National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm had estimated winds of 165 mph (270 kph) when it touched land near Cuixmala, Mexico. While winds have slowed from peak levels of 200 mph, it's still a Category 5 hurricane capable of "potentially catastrophic" damage. 

All the indications are that it made landfall near Cuixmala, a resort between the cities of Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo.

The BBC's Katy Watson, external reports: A spokesman for the governor of Jalisco, Mexico,  said 10,000 tourists have been evacuated from Puerto Vallarta. The remainder will stay put in hotels and other shelters.

Image source, AP

Katy Watson, external, the BBC's Mexico correspondent, will be reporting on Hurricane Patricia in the coming days. US correspondents James Cook, external and Laura Bicker, external will also be reporting from Mexico during the storm.

It seems as if the city of Manzanillo is bearing the brunt of the winds and rains right now. This was filmed by Felipe Mendoza in the last hour.

Image source, Twitter

Hurricane Patricia, the strongest storm ever recorded, has just made landfall in Jalisco, Mexico.

Camilla Matheson, a British woman on holiday in Puerto Vallarta with her husband and eight-year-old son, has been speaking to BBC World News television.

She said authorities had decided not to evacuate their hotel, adding that - for now - it was calm in the resort, if rainy.

Carla Torres, a local woman in Puerto Vallarta, and her famiky have arrived at a Red Cross shelter. She told AP she was afraid she wouldn't be safe in her home.

Many Mexican resorts host webcams, showing off their beautiful beachfront views in normal times, but with Hurricane Patricia barreling toward Mexico's west coast, most of those feeds are down.

Nasa released this video shot from the International Space Station on Friday.  

Here is another video filmed in Manzanillo, just under half an hour ago.

Again, we ask that when sending pictures, video or eyewitness accounts at no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws. 

Take a closer look at the hurricane in this Q&A. 

Image source, EPA

Image source, Getty Images

We've heard plenty about just how powerful Patricia is - but, if it makes landfall as a Category Five hurricane, it wouldn't be the first. It may well be the strongest, though.

The US National Hurricane Center says the only other Category Five to make landfall in the Pacific hit the exact same area - killing close to 1,800 people near Manzanillo, Mexico, in 1959.

On the Atlantic side, the most recent Category Five to touch down was Hurricane Felix in Nicaragua in 2007. More than 100 people died there.

The deadliest Category Five hurricane ever recorded was named San Felipe-Okeechobee. It killed 2,166 people when it hit Puerto Rico in September 1928.

Landfall is still possibly a few hours away - but this is the scene on the coast now. This video was filmed in Manzanillo, in the path of the storm, a few minutes ago.

At the UN Climate Conference in Bonn, the Mexican delegate Roberto Dondisch, has made an emotional appeal, saying the arrival of Hurricane Patricia was a sign of the need for a deal on global warming.

As the hurricane moves north, it is eventually expected to reach Texas, where it could dump yet more rain on a US state already affected by flooding.

Image source, AP