(Reuters) – Alberto, the first named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, has weakened into a tropical depression as it moves inland over northeastern Mexico, bringing more heavy rain and flooding after leaving four people dead, including three children.
The governor of the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon told local media late Wednesday that at least three people under the age of 18 had died due to the storm. Local media reported that by Thursday morning, Civil Protection had reported a fourth death due to electric shock.
One of the victims was later identified by emergency services as a 15-year-old boy who was swept away by a current outside Monterrey, Mexico's third-largest city in Nuevo León state, where the Santa Catarina River had burst its banks.
However, the storm brought much-needed rain across vast swaths of Mexico, where some of its reservoirs had reached 8% water levels due to an extended drought and summer heat wave, even filling the severely depleted La Boca Dam to the brim. .
Brett Anderson, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, said the extreme heat and drought Mexico has experienced will become more normal due to climate change, citing temperatures above the historical average of 5.2 degrees Celsius (9.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in the capital, which received barely… More than a third. The average rainfall for this period.
Climate change is also expected to contribute to increased storm surge over the Atlantic Ocean this hurricane season, as warmer ocean waters allow stronger storms to intensify more quickly.
The US National Hurricane Center said Alberto will continue to bring heavy rain and flooding in parts of northeastern Mexico, and that most of the Texas coast may continue to see moderate flooding.
The National Hurricane Center said the storm made landfall earlier Thursday near the Mexican city of Tampico and was moving west across the country at 18 mph (30 kph), packing maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph). .
Forecasters warned that Hurricane Alberto, which brought rain and storm surge across the Gulf of Mexico, is also interacting with formations in the Pacific Ocean, which together are dumping more heavy rain on Central America, causing flooding and landslides.
At least 22 deaths have been reported in Central America since heavy rains fell last weekend. These include 13 in El Salvador, eight in Guatemala and one in Honduras, where authorities said more than 900 people were evacuated from their homes.
Authorities in Guatemala said on Thursday that 370 people remained in temporary shelters and that about 300 homes had been severely damaged.
“The climate crisis is making extreme weather events such as hurricanes and tropical storms more frequent and intense,” Save the Children Regional Advisor Moa Cortobius said.
She added that about 35 million children live in open areas and are exposed to danger this season in the Atlantic Ocean.