Storm Gordon makes landfall west of Alabama-Mississippi border: NHC

(Reuters) - Tropical storm Gordon made landfall just west of the Alabama-Mississippi border, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Tuesday.

Gordon was located about 35 miles (55 kilometers) south-southwest of Mobile, Alabama and was packing maximum sustained winds of 70 miles per hour (110 km/h), the Miami-based weather forecaster said.

"Rapid weakening is forecast after Gordon moves inland, and is forecast to become a tropical depression on Wednesday," the NHC added.

Gordon was expected to produce total rain accumulations of four to eight inches over the western Florida Panhandle, southwest Alabama, southern and central Mississippi, northeastern Louisiana and southern Arkansas, the agency said.

The storm halted some energy production in the U.S. Gulf, with companies evacuating 54 offshore platforms and halting 156,907 barrels-per-day of oil production and 232 million cubic feet-per-day of natural gas output.

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman and Vijaykumar Vedala in Bengaluru; Editing by Joseph Radford)