Tropical Storm Alex stirs up surf on East Coast
Weakening system still will have an impact
After unleashing flooding rainfall across Cuba, South Florida and the Bahamas over the weekend, Tropical Storm Alex weakened as it trekked past Bermuda and stirred up seas along the eastern USA on Monday.
Alex, the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, reached tropical storm status Sunday morning over the ocean after having killed three people in Cuba, where power outages and dozens of damaged homes were reported.
Streets were left impassible in Miami, where cars were stranded in high waters as the tropical rainstorm doused the city with more than 11 inches of rain Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.
Forecasters said Alex began to lose tropical status Monday afternoon, when maximum sustained winds slowed to 60 mph. It was projected to weaken into an extratropical low.
Bermuda’s tropical storm warning expired as the storm moved eastnortheast from the British territory at about 29 mph Monday afternoon.
Alex knocked down trees, left more than 800 customers without power and led to the cancellation of at least three American Airlines flights.
As Alex moved deeper into the North Atlantic Ocean, AccuWeather meteorologists predicted the tropical storm’s impacts on the East Coast aren’t over.
AccuWeather’s experts said dangerous surf and frequent rip currents are possible from around Palm Beach in South Florida to Virginia’s Tidewater region as Alex heads northeast.
The National Weather Service issued small craft advisories from the Delaware-Maryland border to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, because of rough surf, according to AccuWeather senior meteorologist Adam Douty.
“The worst of the surf was over the weekend along the East Coast, especially from the Carolinas on southward,” Douty told USA TODAY.
Beachgoers down the eastern stretch of coastline into Georgia could see similar impacts, including a heightened rip current risk, according to Douty.
AccuWeather experts anticipated a risk of coastal flooding, particularly during high tide, and minor beach erosion along parts of the East Coast.
“The swells will die down through the day today and tomorrow, and probably still at an elevated rip current risk for tomorrow along the lines of the mid-Atlantic and southeast coast,” Douty said Monday. The coastal threats will generally diminish over the next couple of days, he said.
Alex partially developed from remnants of Hurricane Agatha, which made landfall last week on Mexico’s southern Pacific coast. Agatha killed at least nine people.