A tropical depression spinning in the Caribbean is expected to move north and affect U.S. Gulf Coast states this weekend, likely as a hurricane.
The National Hurricane Center today said the system should move into the warm waters of the Gulf by Saturday, and possibly make landfall somewhere between Louisiana and Florida the next day.
The depression this morning had winds of 35 mph and moving northwest toward the Nicaragua-Honduras border.
It would become named storm Nate when winds hit 39 mph. Preliminary indications are that future Nate would be a low-level hurricane with heavy rains when it makes landfall, though its intensity could change.