Hurricane

Published reports say that heavy winds from Hurricane Isaias led to two fatalities in Alabama and Florida (updated to four.) NBC news reports that one person was killed in East Birmingham when a tree fell on a house. Another person was trapped. CBS News reports a woman in Escambia County, Florida died when a tree hit her house in the winds of Isaias. The other two fatalities also resulted from trees hitting homes.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Alabama and the Florida Panhandle were without power early Saturday after Isaias crashed into the U.S. Gulf Coast as a dangerous hurricane and left flooded roads and downed trees in its wake as it moved inland. Poweroutage.us reports 300,000 in Alabama in the dark this morning, and 400,000 more in Florida.

Tropical Storm Isaias has formed off eastern Mexico. Forecasters say it is expected to strengthen into a hurricane and hit the U.S. Gulf Coast later in the week. Early Wednesday morning, Isaias was located about 285 miles west of Progreso, Mexico, and about 580 miles southwest of the Mississippi River’s mouth.

Tropical Storm Bertha made landfall in Louisiana and was southwest of New Orleans while moving west toward Texas early Thursday morning, after closing beaches on the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle to Mississippi.

Tropical Storm Bertha strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico and was moving slowly toward the Florida Panhandle, causing a tropical storm warning and storm surge watches around the state line between Florida and Alabama, forecasters said. The storm was about 125 miles south of Panama City, Florida, and 200 miles southeast of Mobile.

The remnants of Tropical Storm Arthur battered parts of the southeastern United States with heavy rain and wind on Thursday, damaging buildings, downing trees and knocking out power as flash flood and tornado warnings were issued along the Gulf Coast. Drenching rain stretches from Central Alabama to Mobile and the Eastern Shore.

The first tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season formed Wednesday near the Gulf Coast, bringing intense rain and the threat of dangerous flash floods to states including Texas and Louisiana, meteorologists said. Tropical Storm Arthur was a disorganized cluster of storms that brought rain for days over parts of eastern Mexico and the Gulf. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said conditions were conducive for a short-lived tropical storm to form.

The National Hurricane Center is watching a cluster of storms along the Gulf Coast could become the first named tropical storm of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season. The storms threatened to bring heavy downpours that could lead to dangerous floods across southern states including Texas and Louisiana.

As forecasters with the National Hurricane Center watch the progress of Hurricane Erin, weather watchers say the most powerful storms tend to form later in the year.

Hurricane season is underway and it looks like there are fewer people watching for storms along the Gulf of Mexico. The Trump White House has reportedly made staff cuts to fifteen National Weather Service centers that serve the Gulf.