The hurricane continued to organize and banding-type eye soon formed. Early on August 23 it attained peak winds of 85 mph (140 km/h) with a minimum central pressure of 985 mbar (hPa; 29.09 inHg). Lester weakened steadily as the storm turned to the northeast, and made landfall as a minimal hurricane near Punta Abreojos, Baja California Sur about ten hours after reaching peak intensity. It degenerated into a tropical storm while crossing the Baja California Peninsula. After passing through the northern Gulf of California, it made a second landfall near Isla Tiburon in the state of Sonora. Lester entered Arizona as a tropical storm on August 24, the first time since Hurricane Katrina in 1967 that an Eastern Pacific tropical cyclone entered the United States with winds of at least tropical storm intensity. Lester maintained tropical storm status until it weakened into a tropical depression near Tucson, Arizona. Later that day, the low-level circulation dissipated over New Mexico, and Lester ceased to exist as a tropical cyclone. The storm's remnants transitioned into an extratropical cyclone, as it continued to the north-northeast, ahead of an approaching trough, and later merged with the remnants of Hurricane Andrew and another frontal system on August 29, over Pennsylvania.