A storm that appeared as a blip on the Gulf Coast radar late last week could reach hurricane strength before it bears down, possibly on the southeast Texas coast, by Tuesday morning.

Tropical Storm Edouard may intensify into a Category 1 hurricane by the time it makes landfall, meteorologists said.

The fast-building storm leaves residents and emergency officials little time to prepare for the high winds and heavy rainfall.

"Since it's come up so quickly and so close to the coast, it's not going to be like (Hurricane) Dolly where we were watching it for a week," said Chris McKinney, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. "People need to take it seriously and allow the possibility that it could be a low-end hurricane."

The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch late Sunday for the coasts of western Louisiana and eastern Texas.

Edouard had maximum sustained winds near 50 mph with higher gusts at 7 a.m. CDT today. The storm's center was located about 80 miles south-southwest of Grand Isla, La., and 285 miles east-southeast of Galveston. It was moving west near 8 mph and was expected to strengthen before making landfall Tuesday morning.

As unrelated thunderstorms drenched parts of Houston on Sunday night, officials from around the region started planning for possible flooding, wind damage and power outages from the tropical storm.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett had just boarded a plane for a conference in St. Louis when news of Edouard reached him Sunday afternoon. He got off the plane to help Houston buckle down for the storm.

This would be the second major storm to strike Texas in two weeks. Hurricane Dolly roared into South Texas with 100 mph winds on July 23, dumping a foot of rain near the Texas-Mexico border. The storm did extensive damage on South Padre Island and left more than 100,000 homes without power.

Lessons from Humberto

Edouard is aimed directly at southeast Texas, with a landfall likely somewhere between Corpus Christi and the Texas-Lousiana border. For now, most computer models bring the storm straight into Galveston Island, but there's typically some error in forecasts 36 hours before landfall.

The storm is expected to bring 2 or 3 inches of rain to most of the region - more in the coastal communities it hits the hardest - and considerably more if the system slows.

The storm's winds at landfall are much harder to project. On Sunday the system developed from a center of low pressure into a 50 mph tropical storm, and some computer models forecast Edouard to become a weak hurricane before landfall.

Hurricane forecasters typically have trouble projecting when hurricanes over the Gulf of Mexico's warm waters will rapidly intensify, as Hurricane Humberto did last year before striking Texas.

"Storms never do exactly what we expect. We always prepare for one level of intensity higher than it is," said Mark Sloan, coordinator for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Galveston County's emergency management coordinator, John Simsen, said his staff had been watching the disturbance since Friday, before it coalesced and intensified into a tropical storm. "It was basically a blob," he said.

Forecasters said the storm was unusual because it developed in the Gulf out of the same high-pressure system that has brought oppressive heat to North Texas. Tropical storms typically develop at sea and take days to get to shore. This one sprang up within striking distance of the coast. Emergency officials say they are ready.

"We love to be able to watch the Weather Channel as it comes off the coast of Africa and moves to the U.S.," said Sloan. "But a storm can develop within 24 hours and be right on top of us. We're prepared for those."

Getting ready

There are no evacuation plans set for the region, although Simsen said coastal Galveston Island residents may want to board up windows today. Emergency officials urged residents to stock up on food and flashlights. Officials in Orange, Hardin and Jefferson counties were keeping a vigilant eye on the storm.

Greg Fountain, emergency management coordinator for Jefferson County, had been wary of Edouard since it was barely a tropical depression, having learned a lesson from Hurricane Humberto last September. Humberto erupted from a Gulf weather disturbance to a hurricane in less than 18 hours before striking east of High Island near the Galveston-Chambers county line.

Oil companies with rigs in the Gulf did not signal concern about the storm Sunday night. "There is no Gulf of Mexico storm activity affecting ExxonMobil operations," Exxon's Web site announced.

Shaun Wiggins, a spokesman for Shell Oil, said, "If it looks like it's headed toward any of our rigs, we would evacuate."

By JENNIFER LATSON