MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Alex, the first named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, formed on Saturday in the western Caribbean near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Alex had sustained winds of 40 mph and was located about 250 miles east southeast of Chetumal, Mexico.
It was moving west-northwest at 8 mph on a path that was expected to take it toward Belize and over the Yucatan Peninsula during the weekend and then into the Gulf of Mexico, where BP officials are battling to contain a massive oil spill.