A US Air Force plane was inbound to evaluate the storm, which is likely to miss the spill area if it stays on its current track but could generate waves that would impact cleanup efforts, the US National Hurricane Center said.

At 1800 GMT, the eye of the season's first tropical storm was located about 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of Belize City as it packed maximum sustained winds of 45 miles (75 km) per hour.

On the forecast track, Alex, which was moving in a west-northwesterly direction at around nine miles (15 km) per hour, was expected to make landfall on the coast of Belize and Mexico's Yucatan peninsula later Saturday and move across the peninsula on Sunday.

"Some slight strengthening is possible before Alex moves inland later today followed by weakening as the cyclone moves over land," the NHC said.

The storm is forecast to dump heavy rain over the Yucatan peninsula through Sunday, with rain accumulations of four to eight inches (10-25 centimeters), though isolated amounts of up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) are possible over mountainous areas.

"These rains could cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides," the NHC warned, noting that "heavy squalls" were already approaching Belize and the eastern Yucatan Peninsula.

A tropical storm warning was in effect for the coast of Belize, the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula and on the Honduras coast.

The NHC's five-day forecast has the storm heading over the Gulf of Mexico in the direction of the US-Mexico border, but with a possibility of deviating along a broad area that would graze the site of the huge oil slick unleashed by the April 20 explosion of the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig.

A forecaster at the NHC however downplayed a direct hit on the oil cleanup area.

"The storm is not an issue for the spill," said NHC spokesman Dennis Feltgen.

"It may be going to Mexico. We do not see the path of the storm taking into the northeast Gulf -- but that doesn't mean there won't be some wave impact."

In Mexico, authorities declared the Yucatan Peninsula in a state of preventive alert "for the potential of intense to torrential rain" as Alex approached.

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