Tropical Storm Alberto rumbled toward northeast Mexico early yesterday as the first named storm of the season, carrying heavy rains that left three people dead, but also brought hope to a region that had a prolonged, severe drought.
Mexican authorities downplayed the risk posed by Alberto and instead pinned their hopes on its ability to ease the parched region’s water needs.
“The [wind] speeds are not such as to consider it a risk,” Tamaulipas State Secretary of Hydrological Resources Raul Quiroga Alvarez said during a news conference late on Wednesday.
Photo: AFP
He suggested people greet Alberto happily.
“This is what we’ve been waiting for eight years in all of Tamaulipas,” he said.
Much of Mexico has been experiencing severe drought, with northern Mexico especially hard hit.
Quiroga said that the state’s reservoirs were low and Mexico owed the US a massive water debt in their shared use of the Rio Grande.
“This is a win-win event for Tamaulipas,” he said.
However, in nearby Nuevo Leon State, civil protection authorities reported three deaths linked to Alberto’s rains.
One man died in the La Silla river in Monterrey and two minors died from electric shocks in the municipality of Allende, they said.
Local media reported that the minors were riding a bicycle in the rain.
Nuevo Leon Governor Samuel Garcia wrote on social media platform X that metro and public transportation services would be suspended in Monterrey from Wednesday night until midday yesterday when Alberto has passed.
Late on Wednesday, Alberto was about 64km east of Tampico, Mexico, and about 402km south-southeast of Brownsville, Texas, with maximum sustained winds of 85kph, the US National Hurricane Center said.
Alberto brought rains and flooding to the coast of Texas as well.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
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UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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