Get Ready, Gulf and Atlantic Seaboard

The first tropical-looking blob of the season has formed over the Cayman Islands. Right now it's just a low pressure system with some thunderstorms around it, but the conditions are starting to look more favorable for this to turn into a tropical cyclone. The current GFDL model shows this turning into Tropical Storm Alberto in the Gulf of Mexico, crossing Florida before breifly becoming a hurricane over the Atlantic. It then races up the Eastern Seaboard as a strong subtropical storm, finally making landfall around Halifax. Of course, this is very early in the formation of this potential storm, and the forecast is likely to change wildly before any Alberto can get its act together. This is simply the warning shot across the bow: the hurricane season of 2006 is here, and it's time to make sure the emergency plans are in place.