By September 19 , Henri doubled-back southeastward while weakening to a tropical depression . The depression lost much of its convection and curved northeastward on September 20 , ahead of a cold front . Henri turned east-northeastward on September 23 and was absorbed by a frontal low pressure trough in the east-central Gulf of Mexico on the following day . This was a rare example of a storm entering the Gulf of Mexico and dissipating without making landfall . Henri disrupted cleanup efforts from the Ixtoc I oil spill by damaging a cap designed to stop oil from flowing into the Gulf of Mexico . Although it remained offshore , the storm brought heavy rainfall to Mexico , peaking at , forcing at least 2,000 people from their homes in Ciudad del Carmen , Campeche . This system formed as a non-tropical low within a pre-existing area of heavy thunderstorms along a stationary front on September 19 off the coast of Brownsville , Texas . The low appeared to the northwest of Tropical Storm Henri in the Gulf of Mexico and to the east of a cold-core low over Arizona and New Mexico . The low became a non-tropical gale center on September 20 , while moving into southeast Texas . The cyclone continued northeastward and dissipating over Tennessee . Sources differ on the status of this storm , with the National Hurricane Center ( NHC ) initially considering it a tropical depression , while the National Climatic Data Center considered the system non-tropical and it is not included in the Atlantic hurricane best track
Ixtoc I oil spill
Ixtoc I oil spill
1979 Atlantic hurricane season