Julia moves into El Salvador, targeting southern Mexico on Monday

Tropical Storm Julia pounded the coast of El Salvador on Monday, causing life-threatening flash floods and mudslides, according to the National Weather Service.

The storm made landfall in Nicaragua as a Category 1 hurricane and is expected to continue to cross Central America into southern Mexico through Tuesday, weather forecasters said.

Tropical Storm warnings were in effect on Monday for Honduras along with El Salvador with a watch set for the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. Sustained winds have been closed at nearly 35 mph.

Julia, which formed in the Caribbean, became the 18th named tropical system in the East Pacific Ocean Basin this season.

"A small piece of Julia's energy will hover near the southwestern Gulf of Mexico for a time this week," Courtney Travis, AccuWeather senior meteorologist, said.

"While there is a remote chance this could evolve into a new tropical depression or storm for the Atlantic Basin, the much more likely scenario is for this disturbance to be shredded by stiff winds in the region."

The disturbance had been tracked for more than a week as a tropical rainstorm last Tuesday and then upgraded by the National Hurricane Center to Tropical Depression 13 on Thursday night. At midday on Friday, the NHC said the depression had strengthened into the 10th tropical storm of the 2022 season. On Saturday evening, the NHC upgraded the storm to hurricane status, making Julia the fifth hurricane of the season.

The government of Nicaragua has since discontinued all watches and warnings along the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. Light damage was reported off the coast of Nicaragua in the Colombia Caribbean islands of San Andres and Providencia on Sunday morning, according to Colombian President Gustavo Petro.