Hurricane Julia struck the central Caribbean coast of Nicaragua early Sunday morning after hitting Colombia's San Andrés Island in a nearby passage hours earlier.

Julia began Saturday as a tropical storm, but it turned into a Category 1 hurricane shortly before it veered slightly south of San Andrés Island early in the evening.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Julia's maximum winds settled at about 75 miles per hour (120 km/h) late Saturday.

It was centered about 80 miles (130 kilometers) east-northeast of Bluefields, Nicaragua, and was moving west at 16 miles per hour (26 km/h), with landfall expected on the Nicaraguan coast before dawn.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro declared a "maximum alert" on San Andrés as well as Providencia Island in the north and asked hotels to prepare space to shelter vulnerable residents.

Officials in San Andrés imposed a curfew on residents at 6 a.m. to limit people’s presence on the streets.

Air operations to the islands were suspended. There were no early reports of storm impacts in San Andrés.

In Nicaragua, authorities issued an alert for all types of vessels to seek safe harbor as the hurricane followed a general path towards the Bluefields and Laguna de Perlas area.

Guillermo Gonzalez, director of the Disaster Response System in Nicaragua, told official media that people at high risk were evacuated from coastal areas by midday Saturday.

The army said it delivered humanitarian supplies to Bluefields and Laguna de Perlas for distribution to 118 temporary shelters.

However, life in Bluefields seemed little changed on Saturday night, with people expressing hesitation to leave their homes.

Meteorologists said a greater threat than Julia’s winds was rainfall of 5 to 10 inches (13 to 25 centimeters) - up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) in isolated areas - expected as the storm passes through Central America.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said: "This rainfall may cause life-threatening flooding and mudslides over the weekend."

The storm's remnants were expected to sweep across Nicaragua then curl along the Pacific coasts of El Salvador and Guatemala, an area already saturated by weeks of heavy rain.

In Guatemala, officials said Julia could flood 10 departments in the eastern, central, and western parts of the country - the area hardest hit by this rainy season and where the poorest people are concentrated.

From May to September, storms caused 49 deaths and six missing persons.

Officials in Guatemala said roads and hundreds of homes were damaged. Environment and Natural Resources Minister Fernando Lopez said in El Salvador, where 19 people have died this rainy season, the worst rainfall is expected Monday and Tuesday. Officials said they opened 61 shelters accommodating more than 3,000 people.