A half-sunken fishing boat floats next to a broken dock after Hurricane Jimena hit Puerto San Carlos in Mexico's state of Baja California on Wednesday. (Henry Romero/Reuters)After slamming into the Baja California peninsula as a Category 1 hurricane, a weakening Jimena was downgraded by meteorologists to tropical storm status.

Jimema made landfall Wednesday afternoon between Puerto San Andresito and San Jaunico, a remote area on the Pacific coast dotted with a few fishing villages

By 8 p.m. PT, all hurricane warnings in Baja had been dropped, although some tropical storm warnings remained in place for the peninsula and some parts of the northwestern mainland of Mexico.

The U.S. National Hurricane Centre said the storm was 35 kilometres south of Santa Rosalia, Mexico.

Jimena is expected to move slowly up the central area of the peninsula and then make a turn back out into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday night. The storm is expected to further weaken to tropical depression status by that time.

Jimena's winds had decreased 110 km/h, down from 240 km/h when the storm was a Category 4 hurricane.

Even though its strength has diminished, the storm still prompted the hurricane centre to warn that it could produce up to 375 millimetres of rain in some areas.

"These rains could produce life-threatening flash floods and mud slides," forecasters warned.

As a hurricane, the storm tore off roofs, knocked down power poles and dumped heavy rain on an area that has been suffering a drought.

With files from The Associated Press