Tiny Tropical Storm Marco took a left turn and moved due west into the Mexican coast this morning, making landfall shortly before 11:00 AM EDT between Veracruz and Poza Rica, near the municipality of Vega de Alatorre. According to the AP:

The storm flooded coastal highways and brought heavy rains to the city of Veracruz, but the busy port appeared to have escaped most of the storm’s wrath.

Marco’s “wrath” will have been limited to an extremely small area, due to its possibly record-setting small size. Dr. Jeff Masters has a good post about this, including a satellite image comparing the bohemoth Ike to the “midget” Marco.

Anyway, the AP continues:

Veracruz state authorities closed schools and set up some 200 shelters. Soldiers and rescue officials lined up buses and prepared to evacuate communities, some in low-lying areas still trying to recover from heavy flooding caused by rains last week.

Mexico’s state oil company said it had evacuated 33 workers from four offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, closed six wells and shut down a natural gas processing plant in Veracruz state ahead of Marco’s arrival. …

Mexico’s Communications and Transportation Department ordered the small ports of Nautla and Alvarado closed to small vessels.

Ranulfo Marquez, the state’s top civil protection official, said dozens of shelters would remain open in southern Veracruz, where rain-swollen rivers jumped their banks, leaving the towns of Minatitlan and Hidalgotitlan under 10 feet (3 meters) of water.

“This will be a strong phenomenon (for the state), especially taking into account that we already have 43 rivers that have overflowed,” Marquez said.

Predictably, Marco has weakened rapidly since landfall, and was downgraded to a tropical depression at 5:00 PM EDT.