Tropical Storm Bertha creeped along the Gulf Coast toward the edge of Louisiana on Wednesday, spinning off strong winds far from its center and closing beaches from Florida to Mississippi.
While the storm was expected to lose strength through the rest of the week, forecasters warned that it still could produce damaging winds, coastal storm surges and isolated flooding during the next few days.
A tropical storm warning covered the western Florida Panhandle
to Morgan City, Louisiana, as well as metropolitan New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, National Hurricane Center said.
By Wednesday morning, Bertha was centered about 45 miles (75 kilometers) northeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. It was moving west at 5 mph (7 kph) with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph), according to the hurricane center.
Elsewhere in the U.S. this week, a line of storms generated reports of tornadoes stretching from Cincinnati to New Jersey. Torrential rains caused flash floods that swamped homes, washed out bridges and led to water rescues in West Virginia, authorities said.
Bertha was forecast to make landfall Wednesday night in the coastal and lightly populated part of Louisiana southeast of New Orleans. But the biggest threat was from tropical storm force winds, which extended about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the center, the hurricane center said.
“Landfall really doesn’t have a whole lot of meaning in this particular case,” said Robbie Berg, a warning coordination meteorologist at the hurricane center.
Storm surges up to 4 feet (1.2 meters) were possible in Louisiana from the Mississippi River mouth to the Alabama-Mississippi state line, forecasters said.
Rain between 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) could fall from western Florida to the southern Louisiana coastline, with higher amounts in scattered areas that could cause flash flooding in urban areas.
Bertha was expected to weaken as it pushes into Texas, forecasters said.
Authorities in Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida opened sites to provide sandbags to residents while red flag warnings were posted along some beaches advising swimmers about the dangers of rip tides. Up and down the coast, double red flags on Tuesday signaled that Gulf waters were closed for swimming.
Beaches near Pensacola, Florida, were mostly deserted except for tourists taking photos of the pounding surf.
“For locals, this is just another storm,” said Candice Henderson, manager of the Crab Trap, a beachside restaurant that was packed Tuesday on Pensacola’s Perdido Key. “When you’re on vacation and it's raining, you either shop or you go out to eat.”
Bertha is the second tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. Tropical Storm Arthur in June brought heavy rainfall to the southeastern U.S.
Bertha could dump heavy rain on coastal areas of Mississippi that are still recovering from flooding brought by Arthur that destroyed and damaged homes.
In the eastern Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Fausto churned far from land Tuesday. The hurricane was about 820 miles (1,320 kilometers) west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph).
It was forecast to gradually strengthen and the hurricane center warned that ocean swells generated by Fausto could cause life-threatening surf and rip tide conditions on the Baja California coast.
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Associated Press journalists Julie Walker in New York and Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this report.
