As National Hurricane Center forecasters on Monday announced the second named storm of the season, Bret, off the coast of South America, a more menacing threat to Texas and Louisiana got closer: the likely third named storm this year, Cindy.

The National Hurricane Center on Monday issued a tropical storm watch for parts of the Texas and Louisiana coast, stretching from just east of Houston to about Morgan City, and a tropical storm warning for eastern Louisiana, as an unnamed storm (pictured above) barrels toward the coast. That storm, which forecasters expect to become Cindy, is projected to make landfall Wednesday afternoon, and could cause some trouble for the Houston area. As we reported Monday morning:

If the storm stays east of us, it is likely we will see little to no impact from the storm. For the uninitiated, the wet side of storms is east of the storm's center, while the west side tends to remain on the drier side. However, if the storm hits anywhere from, say, Corpus Christi north to the Texas-Louisiana coastline, we would expect to receive quite a bit of rainfall as a result.

The center also named another low-pressure system making its way toward the Gulf of Mexico Tropical Storm Bret. It is the second named storm of the 2017 hurricane season, after Tropical Storm Arlene, an unusually early storm that formed in April (storms are named in alphabetical order).

On Monday afternoon, that system was passing over the Caribbean islands of Trinidad, Tobago and Grenada, off the coast of Venezuela. It is too early to predict the path of Bret, forecasters say.

Tropical Storm Bret Courtesy NOAA

Both storms could bring heavy rainfall and flooding. Tropical storms, while less severe than hurricanes, still bring sustained winds of 39 to 73 mph.

The Houston Press will have regular coverage of Bret and soon-to-be-Cindy as they approach the Gulf Coast.

