Hurricane Jimena, an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm, barrelled towards Mexico's Baja California peninsula yesterday, forcing tourists to flee the Los Cabos resort area.

Carrying winds of nearly 250 kph, Jimena was due to brush past the tip of the peninsula, home to world class golf courses and yachting marinas, early this morning before making landfall in a sparsely populated area.

Residents, many of them poor hotel workers or builders, huddled into shelters and US tourists sought early flights home to avoid the howling winds and torrential rain.

"I've never seen a storm this big in the 23 years I have lived here," said local resident Caterina Acevedo in Los Cabos, a lively resort area at the tip of the peninsula.

"This one is really scary... but when I tried to leave there were no seats on the planes."

A meeting of economy officials from dozens of countries to discuss tax havens, hosted by the Paris-based Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development, had to be moved from Los Cabos to Mexico City as the storm threat grew.