Weather disturbance threatens Honduras, Nicaragua

MIAMI, (Reuters) – A weather disturbance in the  western Caribbean Sea could develop into a tropical depression  off the Central American coast in the next couple of days, the  U.S. National Hurricane Center said today.
The mass of showers and thunderstorms was about 100 miles  (160 km) east of the Nicaragua and Honduras border and was  expected to bring heavy rains and gusting winds to parts of  those countries, National Hurricane Center forecasters said.
“Only a slight increase in organization would result in the  formation of a tropical depression later today or tonight,” the  forecasters said.
They gave the system a 60 percent chance of developing into  a tropical cyclone in the next two days. If it develops  rotating winds of 39 miles per hour (63 km per hour), it would  become Tropical Storm Rina.
The system was moving northwest but computer forecasting  models diverged widely on its eventual path. Some models took  it over Honduras while others took it toward Mexico’s Yucatan  Peninsula and into the southeast Gulf of Mexico. Another model  took it over Cuba and southeast Florida.
It was too early to tell whether it would threaten energy  interests in the Gulf of Mexico.
Forecasters were also keeping watch on a broad low-pressure  area in the Atlantic Ocean several hundred miles east of the  Windward Islands. That disturbance was moving slowly  west-northwest toward the Caribbean Sea and forecasters gave it  only a 10 percent chance of developing into a tropical cyclone  in the next two days.