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Storm a hurricane threat to Gulf Coast

MIAMI (AP) — Newly formed Tropical Storm Zeta stalled Sunday in the western Caribbean, but forecasters said it posed the risk of a rain-heavy hurricane for Mexico’s resort-dotted Yucatan Peninsula and the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Zeta was the earliest named 27th Atlantic storm recorded in an already historic hurricane season.

The system was centered about 255 miles (410 kilometers) southeast of Cozumel island in Mexico Sunday morning, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

It was nearly stationary, though forecasters said it was likely to near the northeastern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula or westernmost Cuba by late Monday or early Tuesday and then the U.S. Gulf Coast by Wednesday.

The storm had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph), and forecasters said Zeta was expected to intensify into a hurricane by Tuesday.

Officials in Quintana Roo state, the location of Cancun and other resorts, said they were watching the storm. They reported nearly 60,000 tourists in the state as of midweek.

Zeta may dawdle in the western Caribbean for another day or so, trapped between two strong high pressure systems to the east and west. It can’t move north or south because nothing is moving there either, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.

“It just has to sit and wait for a day or so,” McNoldy said. “It just needs anything to move.”

When a storm gets stuck, it can unload dangerous downpours over one place, which causes flooding when a storm is over or near land. That happened in 2017 over Houston with Harvey, when more than 60 inches (150 centimeters) of rain fell and 2019 over the Bahamas with a Category 5 Dorian, which was the worst-case scenario of a stationary storm, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

While Zeta was over open ocean Sunday, Jamaica and Honduras were getting heavy rains because the system is so large and South Florida was under a flood watch, McNoldy said.

But once Zeta eventually gets moving, it won’t be stalling over landfall, Klotzbach said.

The Hurricane Center said Zeta could bring 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain to parts of the Caribbean and Mexico as well as Florida and the Keys before drenching parts of the central Gulf Coast by Wednesday.

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