Hurricane Alex

Pre-Landfall 1 | Summary
Posting Date: June 28, 2010, 8:15:00 AM

The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season is underway. After emerging from the Yucatan Peninsula yesterday, Tropical Storm Alex is growing stronger in the Gulf of Mexico today. The National Hurricane Center’s (NHC) five-day forecast as of 10 am CDT shows the storm possibly becoming a hurricane tomorrow, and making landfall on Thursday—most likely as a Category 1 hurricane—in northern Mexico, close to the border with Texas. Precipitation from the storm could reach the Mexican states of Tamaulipas and Veracruz and parts of South Texas as early as Tuesday evening. As of 10 am CDT today, Alex was about 85 miles west northwest of Campeche, with maximum sustained winds of 60 miles per hour, and higher gusts. The storm is moving north northwest at 7mph towards Mexico’s northern border. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has issued a hurricane watch for the coast of Texas from south of Baffin Bay to the Rio Grande River’s mouth. In Mexico, government officials have issued a hurricane watch for the coastal region from the mouth of the Rio Grande to La Cruz. Alex made landfall on Belize’s coast on Saturday evening as a tropical storm with 60 mile per hour winds. The storm dropped heavy rain on parts of Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula over the weekend, leading to flooding and mudslides that killed four people. In El Salvador, about five hundred people were evacuated amid downpours that threatened homes. Alex grew disorganized as it tracked across the Yucatan Peninsula, weakening to a depression before entering the Gulf midday Sunday. It quickly regained strength over the Gulf’s warm waters, however. According to wind shear estimates from The Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS), Alex is encountering less than 20 knots of shear now, meaning it will not be greatly inhibited in efforts to intensify. As Alex tracks through the Gulf over the next two days, it will move very slowly. While the NHC’s most likely forecast track has it making landfall in northern Mexico, it could also make landfall along the Texas coast north of Corpus Christi, or near Brownsville. Alex’s ultimate landfall location will be determined by the storm’s interaction with high pressure systems over the Gulf of Mexico and the central U.S. Meanwhile, back in the Yucatan and southern Mexico and parts of Guatemala, Alex will continue to drop rainfall amounts between 3 and 6 inches through Tuesday. Alex, the first named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, has sparked concern that it will interact with the oil from the spill in the Gulf that began April 20 this year. However, according to current forecasts, the storm should track well south of the oil slick, though it should be noted that there is significant uncertainty in both the track and future intensity of this storm. The outer wind field of the storm could push oil from the spill farther toward the Gulf coast. In 2008, Hurricane Dolly arrived at the border between Mexico and Texas—a landfall location just north of the current most likely track for Alex. Dolly, a Category 2 hurricane at landfall, resulted in 525,000,000USD in insured losses, according to ISO’s Property Claims Services. The AIR tropical cyclone team is continuing to monitor Tropical Storm Alex’s progress and will provide new information as warranted by events.

Pre-Landfall 1 | Downloads
Posting Date: June 28, 2010, 8:15:00 AM