BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Hurricane Alex churned westward through the Gulf of Mexico early Wednesday, far from oil spill cleanup efforts but on a collision course with Mexico and the southern Texas coastline.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami upgraded the storm to a Category 1 hurricane — the least powerful type — shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday. The storm was centered near latitude 23.8 north and longitude 95.5 west. By Wednesday morning, it had sustained winds of 80 mph. Alex became the first June hurricane in the Atlantic since 1995, the center said.
Bands of intense rain began lashing deep south Texas and northeast Mexico on Wednesday morning as Alex slowed its movement to 7 mph. The National Weather Service pushed Alex’s landfall back to late Wednesday night or early Thursday and raised the possibility that it would make landfall as a Category 2 hurricane.
Texas residents had been preparing for the storm for days, readying their homes and businesses and stocking up on household essentials. But the storm was expected to deal only a glancing blow to the state and to make landfall south of Matamoros, Mexico, and some 100 miles south of Brownsville.
Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
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