Tropical Storm Allison Heading Toward Yucatan

A weather system in the western Caribbean strengthened into the Atlantic hurricane season’s first named storm on Saturday and strengthened as it headed toward Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Tropical Storm Allison, with winds blowing up to 50 m.p.h., brought out storm warnings for the northeastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula and the western tip of Cuba.

It also kicked up thunderstorms and stiff wind across central and southwestern Florida.

At 8 p.m. EDT, the storm’s center was at 22.0 degrees north latitude and 85.9 degrees west longitude, or about 95 miles northeast of Cancun, Mexico. It was moving north at 14 m.p.h.

Winds were expected to strengthen to at least 60 m.p.h. in the next three days, said Miles Lawrence, a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center.

“We are not forecasting it to become a hurricane, but that is a possibility,” he said.

A storm is re-designated a hurricane when wind speed reaches 74 m.p.h.

Allison strengthened from a tropical depression into a storm when its sustained wind speed exceeded 39 m.p.h.

The storm was expected to brush the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula during the night before entering the southeast Gulf of Mexico today.

Forecasters warned the storm could dump more than 10 inches of rain and cause some flash flooding across the Yucatan, the nearby Cayman Islands and the western tip of Cuba.