WASHINGTON (AFP) — Tropical Storm Dolly churned over the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, threatening to grow into a hurricane within 36 hours as it headed toward the Mexico-Texas border, the US National Hurricane Center said.
The governments of Texas and Mexico issued a hurricane watch for coastal areas, meaning they could be struck by hurricane-force conditions within 36 hours, the Miami-based center said.
Dolly was packing 85-kilometer-per hour (50 miles per hour) winds after emerging from Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. The eye of the storm was about 220 kilometers (130 miles) north of the peninsula, moving west-northwest at 30 kilometers per hour (18 miles per hour).
The storm was expected to produce two to four inches (five to 10 centimeters) of rain accumulation in northern Yucatan with isolated maximum amounts of up to six inches (15 centimeter), the center said.
"Gradual strengthening is forecast ... Dolly is forecast to become a hurricane within the next day or two before reaching the western Gulf of Mexico coast," the center said in its latest bulletin issued at 4:00 pm (2100 GMT).
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