Tropical storm Zeta, which formed on Saturday in the Caribbean and heads toward Yucatán, continues to strengthen and
may become a hurricane this Monday
when it approaches the Mexican peninsula, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) .
Zeta, which became the 27th named storm of the Atlantic season on Sunday, parked about 260 miles (420 kilometers) southeast of the island of Cozumel on Sunday night, according to the NHC.
At dawn on Monday, it had
maximum sustained winds of 60 miles per hour
(95 kilometers per hour), as reported by the center.
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The Mexican government issued a hurricane warning for the Yucatan Peninsula, from Tulum to Rio Lagartos, including Cozumel, according to the Miami-based observatory.
A tropical storm warning is also in effect for the Cuban province of Pinar del Río.
The phenomenon could make landfall in Quintana Roo as a category 1 hurricane
and the governor of this state, Carlos Manuel Joaquín González, communicated through Twitter that as of 2 pm this Monday, local time, work activities are suspended in the North Zone.
Authorities in the Mexican state, where Cancun and other popular tourist destinations are located, said they are closely monitoring the storm's trajectory
.
They reported the presence of almost 60,000 tourists in the area by midweek.
The state government indicated that they have 71 shelters for tourists or residents who may need them.
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The government is offering help to the residents of Yucatan, already affected by Hurricane Delta and Tropical Storm Gamma earlier this month.
According to the scheduled trajectory, the center of Zeta
will pass south of western Cuba early Monday
, and will move near or over the north of the Yucatan Peninsula or the Yucatan Channel late on Monday.
On Tuesday it will move into the southern waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and that same day it can reach the central Gulf of Mexico, the NHC said.
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Zeta is the twenty-seventh storm this year in the Atlantic and, if it became a hurricane, it would be the eleventh of this active season.
Zeta's current trajectory, which according to the observatory's graph could include the southern United States as of Wednesday of next week,
is similar to that of other systems that traversed the area this month
.
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Tropical Storm Gamma strengthened on October 4 after leaving Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and entering the waters of the Gulf of Mexico , and the category 2 hurricane Delta made landfall a few days later near Puerto Morelos, Mexico, leaving heavy rains and winds but causing no casualties.
Later, it continued to the southern coast of the United States, where it made landfall again in Louisiana.
It left
at least three
related
fatalities
, material damage and hundreds of thousands of people without electricity.
Zeta will leave abundant rains in central and western Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, the northeast of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico and the south and the Florida Keys, according to the NHC.
Hurricane Epsilon
Hurricane Epsilon, which continues to move through colder waters in the North Atlantic, degraded Sunday afternoon into a post-tropical cyclone.
This system has not made landfall, although last Wednesday it became a "major hurricane" near the Bermuda Islands.
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Epsilon carries sustained winds of 70 miles per hour (112 kilometers per hour) its center was located 419 miles (675 kilometers) east of Cabo Race , on the Canadian island of Newfoundland, according to the latest NHC report.
With Epsilon there are already ten hurricanes formed this season
, of which the largest was Laura, which made landfall in Louisiana at the end of August and caused at least 77 deaths and damages of 14.1 billion dollars throughout its journey.
The previous Epsilon hurricane, Delta, also made landfall in Louisiana, in this case on October 9.
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This Atlantic hurricane season, which
officially ends on November 30
, is the second busiest since 2005, the year of Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma.
Epsilon is the name of a letter in the Greek alphabet.
Greek letters are used to name storms and hurricanes when the list of 21 names that the International Meteorological Organization draws up for each hurricane season is exhausted.
Edited by Pelayo Escandón with information from AP, EFE and NBC News.
