Tropical storm warnings have been issued for parts of the Texas and Mexico coasts ahead of a disturbance in the southwest Gulf of Mexico that is likely to become a tropical storm before tracking into Mexico. Flooding rain, coastal flooding, rip currents and high surf will affect much of the western Gulf coast, from Texas to Mexico.
This system has been dubbed Potential Tropical Cyclone One by the National Hurricane Center (NHC). This naming procedure allows the NHC to issue advisories, watches and warnings and a forecast path for a system that hasn’t yet developed but poses a threat of tropical-storm-force winds to land areas within 48 hours.
The disturbance is centered more than 400 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas, and is moving to the north.
If the system organizes into a tropical storm, it would be named Alberto. The NHC predicts the system will organize into a tropical storm sometime late Tuesday or early Wednesday.
This system will gain some modest strength before tracking into eastern Mexico Wednesday evening. However, impacts will arrive well ahead of that landfall, and they will spread far to the system’s north across Texas.
A tropical storm warning has been issued for the Texas coast from Port O’Connor southward to the mouth of the Rio Grande. A tropical storm warning also extends southward from there into northeast Mexico.
This means tropical storm conditions (winds 39 mph or greater) are expected in the warning area within 36 hours, or in this case by Wednesday.
Heavy rainfall in Texas and northeast Mexico will be the most widespread impact from this system regardless of how well organized it becomes. Totals from South Texas into northeast Mexico could be 5 to 10 inches, with locally higher amounts possible.
Flash flooding is a possibility in coastal and South Texas, including in Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Houston and San Antonio. Flooding and mudslides are likely across eastern Mexico, as well.
Persistent east winds to the north of the system will continue to generate swells that push toward the Texas and Mexico coasts.
Minor to moderate coastal flooding is expected beginning Tuesday and lasting through midweek, especially at times of high tide. Storm surge could peak at 2 to 4 feet along a part of the upper Texas coast, including Galveston Bay, if the peak surge coincides with high tide.
