South Florida under tropical storm warning from potential Alex, winds up to 40 mph

By Kimberly Miller from the Palm Beach Post

Tropical storm warnings wrapped Florida from Sarasota to Titusville this morning as a gush of moisture in the western Caribbean tries to become the first named cyclone of 2022. 

The National Hurricane Center expects the budding system to muscle up to Tropical Storm Alex before making a landfall along the southwest coast Saturday morning. Watches were changed to warnings, including for Palm Beach County, at 5 a.m.

Dubbed Potential Tropical Cyclone One — a technical title given to disturbances that haven't gained a closed circulation yet but are expected to before reaching land — the system's bluster should begin with heavy rainfall today.

While a Hurricane Hunter aircraft found sustained winds of 40 mph this morning, there was still no defined center. The NHC expects it to gain that center, making it a tropical cyclone, later today. At 5 a.m., the system was 420 miles southwest of Fort Myers moving northeast at 40 mph.