After unleashing flooding rainfall across Cuba, South Florida and the Bahamas over the weekend, Tropical Storm Alex is poised to brush past Bermuda on Monday – but not before stirring up rough seas along the eastern U.S.
Alex, the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, reached tropical-storm status on Sunday morning over the Atlantic after having killed three people in Cuba, the Associated Press reported.
Streets were left impassible in Miami with cars stranded in high waters as the then-tropical rainstorm doused the city with over 11 inches of rain on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.
Meanwhile, Bermuda remains under a tropical storm warning as Alex approaches with the threat of up to 2 inches of rain through Monday afternoon.
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The storm moved east-northeastward toward Bermuda at about 28 mph Monday morning with maximum sustained winds near 65 mph, and forecasters expect Alex to weaken into an extratropical low later Monday.
Even as Alex moves deeper into the North Atlantic Ocean, AccuWeather meteorologists predict the tropical storm’s impacts on the East Coast aren’t yet over.
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AccuWeather’s experts say dangerous surf and strong, frequent rip currents are possible from northwestern Florida to Virginia’s Tidewater region as Alex heads northeast, but the rough surf continues on a downward trend through Monday.
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.
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AccuWeather experts also anticipate a risk of coastal flooding, particularly during high tide, and minor beach erosion along parts of the East Coast through Monday.
“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. The coastal threats will generally diminish over the next couple of days, he said.