A tropical depression has formed in the southern Gulf of Mexico, near the Yucatan Peninsula, and will likely grow into Tropical Storm Cristobal by Tuesday, marking the fastest start to the Atlantic hurricane season since 1851.
The storm, with winds of 30 miles per hour, needs to strengthen before it gets a name, but because the threat is high, Mexico has issued a tropical storm warning for the coastline, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
A storm gets a name when its winds reach tropical storm strength of 39 mph."The depression is expected to bring heavy rainfall to portions of southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, which could cause life-threatening flash flooding and mudslide,” Daniel Brown, a senior hurricane specialist at the center, wrote in a forecast analysis.