(Bloomberg) -- Tropical Storm Julia has spun up in the central Caribbean, where it’s bringing heavy rain to Colombia and Venezuela and is on a path to hit Nicaragua on Sunday as a hurricane.

Julia, the Atlantic’s 10th storm in 2022, had top winds of 40 miles (64 kilometers) per hour as it churned about 110 miles west of the tip of Colombia’s Guajira Peninsula, the US National Hurricane Center said in an 11 a.m. New York time advisory. Hurricane watches and warnings extend across Colombia’s coast, as well as in Nicaragua.

“Julia is forecast to become a hurricane by Saturday evening,” Robbie Berg, a senior hurricane specialist at the center, wrote in an analysis. “The potential for life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides is expected to spread to portions of Central America this weekend.”

The storm comes after hurricanes Ian and Fiona battered the US and Canada in the last few weeks. Ian has ripped a path of destruction across Florida, making it one of the worst storms ever to hit the state. Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island also took damage earlier from Fiona.

Julia could strike Nicaragua as a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. Upwards of 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain could fall across Colombia, while Nicaragua and Honduras could see about 10 inches, with some isolated areas getting 15 inches. 

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