Hurricane Katia is now forming in the Gulf coast of Mexico and is expected to turn towards land bringing heavy rain to eastern states in the coming days, the US National Hurricane Center says.
Katia, a Category 1 hurricane, is 314 km east of the port of Tampico, blowing maximum sustained winds of 121 kilometres per hour, the Miami-based NHC said on Wednesday evening.
Category 1 is the weakest hurricane designation by the NHC. Category 5 is the strongest.
There are now three hurricanes in the Atlantic.
Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century and a Category 5, howled past Puerto Rico on Wednesday and is on a collision course with Florida.
Hurricane Jose in the open Atlantic, some 1,610km east of the Caribbean's Lesser Antilles islands, could become a Category 3 and eventually threaten the US mainland.
Earlier in the day, Katia was slightly nearer to the Mexican coast, and at about 7pm (local time) on Wednesday was moving to the southeast at around 5km/h, the center said.
Describing Katia as a "small tropical cyclone," the NHC said the storm would likely start drifting towards the southwest on Thursday, taking it towards the Mexican coast.
Some additional strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours, and the NHC's projections showed the hurricane hitting the oil-rich state of Veracruz around the end of the week.
State oil and gas company Pemex has installations in and around the coast of Veracruz, but so far the firm has not reported any interruptions to its operations.
