Tropical Storm Beta gains strength this Saturday as it moves slowly over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico towards the Texas coast, where authorities issued a hurricane watch Friday night.
Beta is expected to reach sustained winds of up to 74 miles per hour (119 km) on Sunday, when it
will become a category one hurricane
.
Forecasters predict it will make landfall next week in north Galveston County.
In that town, authorities have already announced voluntary evacuation orders for all residents, as has the city of Seabrook, north of Galveston.
Satellite image of Tropical Storm Beta taken on Saturday, September 19, 2020. AP
[How and when to prepare for a hurricane or tropical storm]
According to the latest report from the National Hurricane Center (NHC), as of 4:00 pm ET, Beta was 305 miles (495 km) from Corpus Christi, Texas, and 245 miles (395 km) to the south of Lake Charles, Louisiana, an area where thousands of people are still without power after Hurricane Laura struck in late August.
The hurricane watch ranges from Port Aransas to High Island
, both in Texas.
There is also a storm surge advisory between Port Mansfield, Texas and High Island, and another for a tropical storm from Port Aransas to the mouth of the Rio Grande, and from east High Island to Morgan City, Louisiana.
The forecast points to a storm surge of up to 4 feet (1.2 meters) in parts of the Texas coast that include Baffin Bay, Corpus Christi Bay and Galveston Bay, among others.
The storm is expected to include high winds and rainfall, dangerous surf and rip currents.
[The hurricane season was expected to be intense: it will be even worse]
In an unusually active Atlantic hurricane season,
meteorologists ran out of letters of the traditional alphabet to name storms before Friday
and had to turn to the Greek alphabet for the second time since the 1950s.
Furthermore, Teddy remained a powerful hurricane into early Saturday morning, with maximum sustained winds 130 miles per hour (215 km).
The meteor's vortex was 650 miles (1,045 km) southeast of Bermuda, less than a week after Hurricane Paulette made landfall on British soil.
Authorities activated a tropical storm alert on the island.
The swells caused by Teddy are expected to be felt in the Greater and Lesser Antilles, in the Bahamas, Bermuda,
before reaching the East Coast of the United States
.
Parts of the Alabama coast and northwestern Florida are still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Sally, which hit the area Wednesday.
The system caused at least two deaths and hundreds of thousands of people were still without power Friday night.
With information from The Associated Press
.
