document: Hurricane Joan 's 80 mph winds churned across the open Caribbean today on an unusual southern path that has forecasters puzzling over its potential strength and possible landfall . There was a report that the storm left 50 people dead or missing in a town in Colombia the day before . `` Joan is one of a kind , '' said Jim Gross , a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center . `` You just do n't see many hurricanes that take this course and hug the coast . '' In Colombia , an official of the state of Bolivar in the northern part of the country said the storm triggered flooding in the town of Carmen de Bolivar , about 360 miles north of the capital of Bogota . Water roared down three gullies in the town as the storm passed Monday , Victor Leon Mendoza , a state government administrator , told the Colombian radio chain RCN . `` Preliminary reports from the mayor 's office indicate that about 50 persons are dead or missing '' in the town , he said . At noon EDT today , Joan 's center was near latitude 11.1 north and longitude 76.3 west , about 70 miles west of the Colombian coast and about 380 miles east of the island of San Andres off the coast of Nicaragua . The hurricane was moving west at 10 mph and was expected to continue that motion through today . Panama issued a hurricane watch for its north coast , and Colombia issued a hurricane watch for San Andres , which is part of Colombia even though it is located close to Nicaragua . Joan , the Atlantic season 's fifth hurricane , is expected to bring 4 to 8 inches of rain along its path . As a tropical storm with 45 mph winds , Joan slowly built its strength as it skimmed Colombia 's coast , baffling forecasters who had predicted it to weaken . It reached hurricane force Monday night and its center began to become better defined , a sign the system could intensify over open water into the western Caribbean , forecasters said . On its present path , it would be at least 48 hours before the main part of the hurricane reached Central America , Gross said late Monday . Gross said a strong high-pressure system over the northern Caribbean is keeping Joan on its course . Normally , prevailing winds and upper-level atmospheric conditions push tropical storms northward as they move from the Atlantic , said Gross . Also , he said hurricanes are often sapped of strength in the far southern Caribbean due to trade winds that push colder deep-ocean water to the surface , said Gross . Joan became the 10th named storm of the 1988 Atlantic hurricane season when top winds passed 39 mph on Oct. 11 . Hurricane strength is 74 mph . Gilbert , the most devastating hurricane in recent years , left more than 300 people dead and caused billions of dollars damage as it tore through Jamaica , the Cayman Islands and Mexico 's Yucatan peninsula last month . The six-month hurricane season ends Nov. 30 .
extractive_keyphrases: hurricane joan open caribbean hurricane watch colombia panama atlantic hurricane season tropical storms hurricane force