A tropical storm is brewing in the Gulf of Mexico and is likely to head for Texas around the weekend. Squally winds with gale-force accompanied with torrential rains are likely over southeast Texas Friday onwards. Tropical depression ‘Eight’ is now lying about 700 km away from the coast and is moving west-northwest with an average speed of 12kmph.
The depression is likely to intensify to a tropical storm in the next about 24hr. It is expected to retain the strength as a tropical storm for 36 hours till the landfall sometime around Saturday. The weather system can dump rain in excess of 20cm accompanied with strong winds exceeding 75kmph. The tropical storm will be named as ‘Hanna’, the eighth named storm of this season so far.
A tropical storm watch is in effect the Texas coast from Port Mansfield to High Islands. The center of the system is likely to hit near Victoria on Saturday morning.