New storm Zeta a threat to Mexico, U.S. Gulf Coast

MIAMI — Newly formed Tropical Storm Zeta strengthened Sunday in the western Caribbean and probably will become a hurricane before hitting Mexico’s resort-dotted Yucatan Peninsula and the U.S. Gulf Coast in coming days.

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

The system was centered about 275 miles southeast of Cozumel island early Sunday evening, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

The storm was nearly stationary, though forecasters said it was likely to shear the northeastern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula or westernmost Cuba by late Monday or early Tuesday and then close in on the U.S. Gulf Coast by Wednesday, but could weaken by then.

The storm had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, and forecasters said Zeta was expected to intensify into a hurricane Monday.

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.

The state government said 71 shelters were being readied for tourists or residents who might need them.

Zeta may dawdle in the western Caribbean for another day or so, trapped between two strong high pressure systems to the east andwest.

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 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 four to eight inches 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.

Zeta broke the record of the previous earliest 27th Atlantic named storm that formed Nov. 29, 2005, according to Klotzbach.

Zeta is also the furthest into the Greek alphabet the Atlantic season has gone.