With the 2024 hurricane season only three weeks old, the first storm to grow large enough to be given a name has formed in the Gulf of Mexico. Alberto has a better than 90 percent chance of maintaining sustained winds of 39 knots or higher.
As of Wednesday, June 19, tropical storm warnings have been issued for the coastal areas from Mexico’s Gulf of Tampico to Galveston, Texas. The predicted path of the storm takes it ashore more or less over the city of Tampico.
Hurricane-force winds are not going to be the main threat from Alberto, with the National Hurricane Center predicting speeds of 40-50 knots. But, rain will cause flooding through northwestern Mexico and in southern Texas from Brownsville to Corpus Christi. Six to eight inches are forecast through Friday the 21st, with as much as 20 inches falling in the higher elevations in NW Mexico.
A second tropical disturbance in the Atlantic is presently east of the northern Bahamas. The NHC has given this depression a 20 percent chance of becoming a rotating cyclone –precursor to a tropical storm—in the next seven days.
