VALDOSTA – Tropical Depression Sixteen was upgraded to tropical storm status Thursday morning and named Tropical Storm Nate, according to National Weather Service Warning Coordination Meteorologist Mark Wool.

While Wednesday projections showed the path possibly hitting Georgia, it has since shifted considerably to the west. Tropical Storm Nate is currently over land in Honduras and will move back out over the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea before clipping the Yucatan Peninsula, Wool said.

The storm will then move across the Gulf as a hurricane and begin the process of curving near the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana, where it will make landfall Sunday morning, Wool projects.

“There’s always a chance it could shift back east, but it’s not looking likely,” Wool said. “Lowndes County’s primary threat, if anything, would be if we get into one of the rainbands and see localized flooding. We will be looking out for that and, to a lesser extent, tornadoes.”