Tropical Storm Nicholas slows, dumps foot of rain

Tropical Storm Nicholas slowed to a crawl over southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana on Tuesday after blowing ashore as a hurricane, knocking out power to a halfmillion homes and businesses and dumping more than a foot of rain along the same area swamped by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

Nicholas could potentially stall over storm-battered Louisiana and bring lifethreatening floods across the Deep South over the coming days, forecasters said.

Nicholas made landfall early Tuesday on the eastern part of the Matagorda Peninsula and was soon downgraded to a tropical storm. It was about 50 mileseast of Houston, with maximum winds of 40 mph as of 4 p.m. CDT Tuesday, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.