Tropical Storm Nate has formed off the coast of Nicaragua and is expected to drench parts of Central America and Mexico before potentially hitting the US Gulf Coast as a hurricane over the weekend.
On Thursday, the US National Hurricane Centre said the storm could cause dangerous flooding by dumping as much as 38 to 50 centimetres of rain on Nicaragua, with higher accumulations in a few places.
It had maximum sustained winds of 65 km/h on Thursday morning and was likely to strengthen over the northwestern Caribbean Sea on Thursday night and Friday.
The storm was centred about 15 km south Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, and was moving northwest near 13 km/h.
The forecast track showed it could brush across the tip of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula late on Friday night and then hit the US Gulf Coast as a hurricane by Sunday morning.
In the Pacific, former Tropical Storm Ramon dissipated off the southwestern coast of Mexico.
