In mid-June, a large area of disturbed weather formed from the Central American Gyre (CAG), a seasonal area of low pressure and stormy weather which extends from the southwestern Caribbean to adjacent parts of the eastern Pacific. This gyre is most pronounced near the beginning and end of hurricane season. Once the disturbance separated from the main gyre and crossed the Yucatan peninsula, it encountered favorable conditions in the Bay of Campeche and began to slowly organize. Disturbances born from the CAG are typically very large and take time to consolidate, so even though the system was already producing gale force winds by June 17, it was not yet a tropical cyclone.
It continued northwest and then west for the next couple of days, and by June 19 had a tighter circulation and a spiral band of thunderstorms extending south and west of the center. Therefore, it was named Tropical Storm Alberto, the first named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. Fortunately, Alberto did not have time to develop an inner core and intensify quickly, but it still strengthened a little. By the morning of June 20, it had reached its peak intensity of 50 mph winds and a central pressure of 993 mb. That same morning, it made landfall in Mexico, close to the northern border of the state of Veracruz. Because Alberto had a very large windfield, there were notable storm surge impacts well to the north of the landfall point, even in the southernmost Texas coastline. Once over land, the storm quickly weakened and the circulation dissipated by that afternoon.
The image above shows Alberto as a tropical storm in the early evening of June 19.
Alberto spent just over a day as a tropical cyclone, but still caused notable rainfall and storm surge impacts.
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