Fausto intensified rapidly after it reached hurricane intensity on the 12th, peaking with sustained winds of and a minimum central pressure of . The hurricane weakened as an approaching trough increased shear over the storm; this same trough also turned the storm north on the 13th, where it made landfall as a minimal hurricane Baja California that day. On September 14, the storm turned northeastward across the Gulf of California, and dissipated inland over the Sierra Madre range after its second landfall as a hurricane. Its extratropical remnants flared up briefly over northern Mexico and Texas, but otherwise soon lost their identity.