Tropical Storm Nate is beginning to pull away from Central America as hurricane watches are posted for parts of the northern Gulf coast.
- Tropical Storm Nate forms in southwestern Caribbean
- Track coming more into focus
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The latest position has it about 350 miles south-southeast of Cozumel, Mexico.
It is moving to the northwest at 12 mph with sustained winds of 40 mph. The central minimum pressure is 1000 mb.
The center of the system was over land for much of Thursday, but it's reentering the northwestern Caribbean Sea.
Hurricane watches have now been posted for parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, including the New Orleans metropolitan area. Tropical storm watches are in effect for the far western panhandle of Florida and for central Louisiana.
The following advisories are in effect:
A tropical storm warning for:
- Punta Castilla, Honduras to the Honduras/Nicaragua border
- Punta Herrero to Rio Lagartos, Mexico
A hurricane watch for:
- Punta Herrero to Rio Lagartos, Mexico
- Morgan City Louisiana to the Mississippi/Alabama border
- Metropolitan New Orleans
- Lake Pontchartrain and lake Maurepas
- Punta Herrero to Rio Lagartos Mexico
A tropical storm watch for:
- Mississippi/Alabama border to the Okaloosa/Walton Co. Line
- West of Morgan City to Intracoastal City Louisiana
A storm surge watch for:
- Morgan City Louisiana to the Alabama/Florida border
- Northern and western shores of Lake Pontchartrain
On the current forecast track, this system could become a hurricane before impacting the central Gulf Coast of the United States late Saturday and Sunday. While there is still great uncertainty over exactly where landfall will occur, models have been shifting west with landfall possible somewhere over coastal Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama.
Rain and wind will extend far from the storm’s center, so impacts are possible in the western Florida panhandle. Impacts to the rest of Florida look minimal at this time.
Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday declared a state of emergency in 29 Florida counties in response to Tropical Storm Nate.
The counties under the state of emergency are Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Holmes, Washington, Bay, Jackson, Calhoun, Gulf, Gadsden, Liberty, Franklin, Leon, Wakulla, Jefferson, Madison, Taylor, Hamilton, Suwannee, Lafayette, Dixie, Columbia, Gilchrist, Levy, Baker, Union, Bradford and Alachua.
Meanwhile, federal officials said oil and gas companies had begun evacuating production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico in anticipation of Nate.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement's New Orleans office said in a news release that as of midday Thursday, six production platforms of the 737 manned platforms in the Gulf had been evacuated. No drilling rigs were evacuated, but one moveable rig was taken out of the storm's path.
The agency estimated less than 15 percent of the current oil production in the Gulf has been shut in, which equates to 254,607 barrels of oil per day.
High pressure overhead and a cold front sweeping into the central U.S. will play a role in steering this system.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic, no tropical formation is expected in the next five days.
Information from the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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• What exactly are the spaghetti plots?
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Remember that the spaghetti model plot does not indicate the strength of a system or even development at all. It only predicts where this broad area of low pressure is expected to go.