Ida's still risky, Kate no threat, Africa could spawn Larry

MIAMI (AP) - Hurricane Ida's remnants dumped rain from Gulf Coast states into New England on Tuesday, while Tropical Storm Kate swirled far from Atlantic shores and another tropical depression was brewing off the coast of Africa.

Ida, which weakened to a tropical depression with top sustained winds of 30 miles (48 kph), was centered over northern Mississippi and Tennessee, but the National Weather Service said flash flooding was most likely in central Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia and western Maryland, where 6 to 10 inches (15 to 25 centimeters) could fall. Forecasters also warned of higher wind gusts, and said Ida was most likely to spawn tornadoes in eastern Alabama, western Georgia and the Florida Panhandle.

Kate was loosely organized and should remain far from any shore in the central Atlantic, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami reported. Forecasters said another tropical depression was forming off the coast of Africa, blowing across the Atlantic a couple of hundred miles west-southwest of the coast of Guinea.