Tropical Storm Hermine barely maintained its status Tuesday as 64 kilometer-per-hour (kph) winds continued to hit southern Texas and the storm moved further inland, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. As when Hurricane Alex hit the same area in June, there was a sense that Hermine could have been worse. There were no reports of serious injuries or major damage early Tuesday, and authorities ordered no evacuations. The storm's path kept it away from major oil and natural-gas installations in the Gulf of Mexico, and refineries in Texas were not affected, operators said. Hermine dropped between 12.5 and 30 centimeters of rain after crossing into Texas late Monday. The storm made landfall in northeastern Mexico with winds up to 100 kph. The storm was forecast to weaken during the next two days and become a tropical depression later on Tuesday. However, thunderstorms and flooding rains were expected to move north into the central United States, forecasters said. Meanwhile, the NHC was monitoring three other tropical systems in the Atlantic, including the remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston, but it was too early to know whether any of the systems might move into the Gulf of Mexico and affect offshore energy production. The NHC said cloudiness and rain over the northeastern Caribbean Sea were associated with Gaston's remnants, and the system had only a 10 percent chance to become a tropical storm again during the next two days as it moved westward at 24 to 32 kph. A weak area of low pressure about 560 kilometers west of the northernmost Cape Verde Islands had a 10 percent chance to develop further as it moved westward at about 16 kph, while a tropical wave between the Cape Verde Islands and the west coast of Africa also had a 10 percent chance to develop into a tropical storm as it moved westward at 16 to 24 kph.
