MEXICO CITY, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Hurricane Ivo churned across the Pacific toward Mexico on Thursday and is likely to hit the Baja California peninsula early next week, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Ivo, some 430 miles (700 km) south of the peninsula's beach and golf resort Los Cabos, had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph), making it a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir Simpson scale.

It is likely to strengthen as it crosses warm water.

"The environment would seem to favor some intensification," the center said.

The latest forecasters' models showed the storm is due to curve into Baja California early on Monday, the center said.

Hurricane Henriette slammed into Los Cabos, which is popular with U.S. visitors, earlier this month, killing two fishermen and a foreign tourist.

Henriette also flooded northern Mexico with driving rain, raging over the farming states of Sonora and Sinaloa.

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