Tropical Storm Agatha headed for Mexico coast

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Tropical Storm Agatha headed for Mexico coast

Tropical Storm Agatha, the first named storm this year in the eastern Pacific, is hurtling toward the Mexican coast and has the potential to become a hurricane, triggering life-threatening flash floods and mudslides, the National Hurricane Center said on Saturday.

According to Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the Hurricane Center, said Agatha could make landfall on Monday as a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 100 miles per hour.

Agatha was headed toward the largely rural Mexican state of Oaxaca and was expected to dissipate Wednesday morning. Feltgen said storms originating in the eastern Pacific did not generally reach the United States as hurricanes. He said that if the storm survives its trek across Mexico, its remnants could emerge into the Gulf of Mexico.