Tropical Storm Nate rapidly weakened to become a tropical depression over Alabama in the US today, although the fast-moving former hurricane left roads and buildings flooded in Mississippi after coming ashore there.
Nate's maximum sustained winds dropped to 55km/h as it moved northeast into Alabama, prompting the National Hurricane Center to end its tropical storm warnings for the region this morning.
The fourth major storm to strike the United States in less than two months, Nate killed at least 30 people in Central America before entering the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and bearing down on the US south. It has also shut down most oil and gas production in the Gulf.
Nate follows Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, which have devastated areas of the Caribbean and southern United States in the last two months.
The storm system's centre will move inland over Mississippi and across the Deep South, Tennessee Valley and Central Appalachian Mountains through tomorrow, the NHC said.
Heavy rainfall and storm surge flooding remained a danger across the region, and the NHC said Florida's Panhandle and parts of Alabama and Georgia might feel tropical-storm-force wind gusts.
Nate made its first US landfall last night near the mouth of the Mississippi river and then made a second one early today near Biloxi, Mississippi, whose 46,000 residents were warned that the highest storm surge could reach 3.4-3.7 metres.
The storm doused Central America with heavy rains on Thursday, killing at least 16 people in Nicaragua, 10 in Costa Rica, two in Honduras and two in El Salvador.
