Nate weakens to tropical depression over Mexico

VERACRUZ, Mexico?? Nate weakened to a tropical depression Sunday over Mexico's Gulf coast, where officials opened shelters as a precaution but said the storm was having little impact.

Nate made landfall as a tropical storm before noon (1 p.m. EDT; 1700 GMT) north of Barra de Nautla in the state of Veracruz, where Gov. Javier Duarte said there were no reports of damage or injuries and rivers remained below risk level.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said that by Sunday afternoon Nate had weakened to a depression with 35 mph (55 kph) winds and was expected to dissipate by Monday. It discontinued its tropical storm warning for the coast.

Of more than 2,200 shelters set up in Veracruz state, only two were in use, housing little more than 50 people, civil protection authorities said. In the city of Antigua, Mayor Arturo Navarrete told radio station XEU that there was light rain and very little wind.

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An intensified air and sea search failed to turn up 10 oil workers who went missing Thursday, and there was no word from a dozen fishermen who disappeared aboard two shrimp boats on Friday.

Authorities said they still had found no sign of the oil workers, who abandoned their disabled liftboat for an enclosed life raft in the storm Thursday. The employees of Houston-based Geokinetics Inc. called for help Thursday afternoon after leaving a vessel known as Trinity II around midday. The missing include four U.S. workers, four Mexican workers, one worker from Kazakhstan and a 10th of unconfirmed nationality.

A liftboat can lower legs to the sea floor and then elevate itself above the water level. This one was being used as a recording vessel and housing for the crew, and it was in waters about 25 feet (8 meters) deep.

The Mexican navy said Friday night that sailors had reached the 94-foot (29-meter), 185-ton Trinity II but found no crew.

Geokinetics spokeswoman Brenda Taquino said the life raft was a sealed capsule containing enough food and water to last several days, but there was no way to communicate with it.

On Sunday evening, Nate's center was located about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south-southwest of Tuxpan, Mexico and was moving west-northwest at 8 mph (13 kph).

In the Caribbean on Sunday, Tropical Storm Maria was centered about 105 miles (170 kilometers) northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, with winds that had strengthened to 60 mph (95 kph). The hurricane center said it was moving northwest at about 10 mph (17 kph), toward the open Atlantic.

Residents in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico said they were relieved that Maria was not stronger and its heavy winds were well north of the islands.

"What storm? It didn't hit us," said Karen Freeman, a resident of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. She had bought a $250 generator in advance of the storm, but now was hoping to get a refund.

In Puerto Rico, where there were no reports of any damage or flooding from Maria, 43-year-old Laura Melendez said she had been worried about the storm's potential impact on the U.S. territory, which is still trying to recover from Hurricane Irene, which barreled through the region in late August, killing at least eight people.

"Irene was a bad one. My family lost electricity at home for five days. We had no running water," she said during a Sunday afternoon phone interview from the capital of San Juan.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44475463/ns/weather/

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