Upon becoming a hurricane, Paul turned to the north and continued to develop. As the storm neared Baja California Sur, it reached Category 2 intensity. An upper-level trough forced the hurricane to accelerate towards the northeast, at which point it had reached peak wind speeds of 110 mph (180 km/h). From 1800 to 2100 UTC on September 29, the eye of the hurricane made landfall along Baja California Sur, moving ashore less than south of La Paz near San José del Cabo. After weakening slightly inland, Paul briefly reemerged over water and subsequently made its final landfall near Los Mochis, Sinaloa with winds of 100 mph (165 km/h). Tropical cyclone advisories were discontinued shortly thereafter, though exact information on the storm after it moved inland is unavailable due to a lack of data completion in the hurricane database.