07 October, 2017
Coffee, Dale, and Geneva counties, as well as the Florida counties of Holmes, inland Bay, north Walton, and Washington have been placed under a tropical storm watch.
It was moving north-northwest and was expected to turn to the north and northeast and "make landfall over the northern Gulf coast Saturday night or Sunday", as a hurricane, the advisory said.
"By Saturday and Sunday, expect mostly cloudy skies with about a 40-50 percent chance of afternoon storms", News 6 meteorologist Candace Campos said.
Hurricane Nate is threatening the United States central Gulf Coast after killing at least 25 people in Central America.
The Category 1 storm has maximum sustained winds of about 80 miles per hour. A hurricane warning is in effect from Louisiana to Alabama.
Around three quarters of US Gulf of Mexico oil production was turned offline ahead of the hurricane's arrival.
"There is the potential for a tropical storm or hurricane to make landfall along the Gulf coast from southeastern Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle this weekend", AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski said.
What else do you need to know?
He said more than 1,000 National Guard troops had been mobilised with a number sent to New Orleans to monitor the drainage pumps there. Storm surges could be as high as 7 feet in some places, which isn't good news for New Orleans after the city's recent pumping failures. A tropical storm watch is in effect for Atlanta. If Nate does become a hurricane, he says odds are it won't get much bigger than a Category 1.
A Hurricane Warning is in effect for.
Nate is heading into the Northwestern Caribbean Sea today where it may strengthen before it reaches the Yucatan peninsula.
Thousands were forced to evacuate their homes and Costa Rica's government declared a state of emergency.
Tropical storm conditions are expected to continue within portions of the warning area in Honduras during the next few hours, but gradually subside.
The storm, which has already killed 22 people in Central America, has forced the evacuation of more than 60 platforms and drilling rigs as of late Friday morning local time.
