Rina downgraded

Rina has been downgraded to a tropical storm, as it bears down on Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

Rina once threatened to be a category three storm, and many tourists had already abandoned Cancun and other resort towns as the storm approached.

But now, Rina’s maximum sustained winds have dropped to 112 kilometres an hour.

The storm is expected to be near or over the eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula late Thursday or early Friday, before turning back out to sea.

Even as a tropical storm, Rina is expected to bring heavy rain and potentially dangerous waves.