Fla. beaches empty out as storm nears
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Subtropical Storm Alberto gained the early jump on the 2018 hurricane season as it headed toward anticipated landfall sometime Monday on the northern Gulf Coast, where white sandy beaches were emptied of their usual Memorial Day crowds.
Though the Atlantic hurricane season doesn’t officially start until Friday, Alberto has become the first named storm this year, throwing holiday weekend plans up and down Florida’s Gulf Coast into disarray. And just as Memorial Day marked summer’s unofficial start in the U.S., Alberto gave the nation the unofficial start of what forecasters recently predicted would be an active hurricane season.
At 11 p.m. Sunday, Alberto was centered about 205 miles west of Tampa and had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph — up from 50 mph only hours earlier. Forecasters said Alberto took a northwesterly course at 9 mph that was expected to bring it over the northern Gulf Coast on or near the Florida Panhandle.
“On the forecast track, the center of Alberto will move over the northern Gulf of Mexico overnight and cross the northern Gulf Coast in the warning area on Monday,” the National Hurricane Center said. It sounded the alarm on life-threatening surf conditions, the possibility of a few brief tornadoes in much of Florida and parts of Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama. And, it said, heavy rains are also expected in many areas.
Lifeguards have posted red flags along Pensacola Beach, where swimming and wading were banned amid high surf and dangerous conditions. Gusty showers were expected Sunday, along with possible flash flooding. The hurricane center said a tropical storm warning was in effect from the Suwannee River in Florida to the Mississippi-Alabama state line.
The storm’s approach also triggered mandatory evacuations of some small, sparsely populated Gulf Coast barrier islands in one Florida county. The Florida Division of Emergency Management said in a statement Sunday that a mandatory evacuation was issued in Franklin County for all barrier islands there and those in the county who live directly on the coast in mobile homes or in recreation vehicle parks.
A subtropical storm like Alberto has a less defined and cooler center than a tropical storm, and its strongest winds are found farther from its center. Subtropical storms can develop into tropical storms, which in turn can strengthen into hurricanes.