MIDWAY, Fla. (WTXL) -- After being monitored over the last several days, a strong low-pressure system in the eastern Atlantic acquired enough organization and strength to be called a subtropical storm, and to gain a name in the Northern Hemisphere winter.
Subtropical Storm Alex is not a threat to any North American land mass. It is located just shy of 800 miles south-southwest of the Azores, with highest sustained winds of 50 mph.
Alex is moving northeast at 14 mph, and is forecast to maintain a mostly northerly course of movement through the rest of the week.
Subtropical Storm Alex is a mixed warm and cold air low-pressure circulation, now independent of any frontal systems but also influenced by an upper-level cyclone.
Because of the current cold environment in the Atlantic, further strengthening will be limited.
The National Hurricane Center says this is only the fourth subtropical or tropical storm to be monitored since official records began in 1851, and the first since an unnamed storm formed in the southern Atlantic in 1978.
