"Tropical storm Ernesto weakened on Wednesday as it dumped heavy rains over Mexico's southern Yucatan peninsula and headed toward the Gulf of Mexico, where the country's main oil operations are located."
"A hurricane warning for Mexico's western Gulf coast was called off earlier on Wednesday and replaced with a lower-grade hurricane watch as the storm lost strength over land, although its top wind speed rose later in the day.
The storm spared major tourist areas on the Yucatan coast from a direct hit and landed in sparsely populated low-lying jungle late on Tuesday. It made land as a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, and was downgraded to a tropical storm early on Wednesday."
David Alire Garcia reports for Reuters August 9, 2012.
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