Potential first Atlantic tropical cyclone of the year developing in the Gulf

Forecasters are monitoring the potential first tropical cyclone of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, saying it could develop into a fully formed storm on Wednesday and bring “life-threatening flash flooding.”

The National Hurricane Center issued a preliminary weather advisory for the system, currently a tropical disturbance called Potential Tropical Cyclone One, on Tuesday morning.

It came as record rainfall and life-threatening flash floods were already drenching parts of the South, where communities braced for more rain through the week.

Potential Tropical Cyclone One was located in the northwestern Gulf early Wednesday local time, about 15 miles east-southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, according to the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center. It was traveling northeast at 5 mph, with maximum sustained winds of 30 mph, below the 39 mph threshold required for it to be designated as a tropical storm.

The system “should move along or roughly parallel to the upper Texas coast today,” the hurricane center said, and “is expected to move farther inland over extreme eastern Texas or southwestern Louisiana tonight.”

The disturbance “is forecast to gradually strengthen and could become a tropical storm today,” the center continued, before weakening by tonight, when it moves farther inland.

It’s “expected to produce rainfall totals of 5 to 10 inches, with isolated higher totals near 20 inches, through Thursday from the mid- and upper-Texas coast east-northeast into southern and central portions of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, along with western portions of Georgia and the Florida Panhandle,” the center said, and that “could generate dangerous to life-threatening flash flooding.”

A tropical storm warning was in place for the coast of Louisiana from Sabine Pass to Morgan City, meaning tropical storm conditions are expected within the next 24 hours, and a tropical storm watch was posted from Sabine Pass to Sargent, Texas.

Several major cities, including Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and New Orleans, could experience ongoing spells of excessive rainfall, forecasts showed.