NU Online News Service, July 29, 2:18 p.m. EDT

A tropical-storm warning is in effect for the Texas coast from the mouth of the Rio Grande River up to Matagorda, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

Tropical Storm Don is expected to make landfall on the Texas coast tonight or early Saturday morning, bringing tropical storm-strength wind, storm surge and three to five inches of rain, with possible isolated maximum amounts of seven inches, the NHC says.

As of 11:00 a.m. EDT, Don was heading west-northwest toward the coast at around 14 miles per hour. Maximum sustained winds were near 50 miles per hour, and the NHC says some strengthening is possible before landfall.

In its latest “Cat-i” report, Guy Carpenter says Don is the biggest threat to the Gulf of Mexico energy infrastructure in the 2011 Gulf storm season thus far. “Energy operations in the Gulf, including Shell Oil and Apache Corp, continue to take precautions by evacuating support personnel from facilities in the storm’s path,” Guy Carpenter says. “However, analysts do not anticipate prolonged production outages or infrastructure damage due to the storm’s relative weakness and position in the Gulf of Mexico.”