Tropical Storm Alex weakened to just below hurricane intensity as it moved across the Azores on Friday morning.  At 10:00 a.m. EST the center of Hurricane Alex was located at latitude 39.3°N and longitude 27.0°W which put it about 35 miles north of Terceira in the Azores.  Alex was moving toward the north at 28 m.p.h. (44 km/h).  The maximum sustained wind speed was 70 m.p.h. (115 km/h) and there were wind gusts to 85 m.p.h. (135 km/h).  The minimum surface pressure was 986 mb.

It appears that the center of Tropical Storm Alex made landfall on the island of Terceira.  Weather stations on Santa Maria and Sao Miguel have measured tropical storm force winds.  However, it seems like the core of Tropical Storm Alex which contains the strongest winds remained over water.  Higher wind speeds most likely occurred on the windward sides of mountains in the Azores.

In anticipation of the movement of Tropical Storm Alex away from the islands all Hurricane Warnings and Tropical Storm Warnings for the Azores have been discontinued.

Tropical Storm Alex is over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 16°C.  It will move over even cooler water and Alex will soon be unable to extract enough energy from the ocean to sustain the structure of a tropical cyclone.  The structure of Alex will gradually change to the structure of a cold core extratropical cyclone during the next several days.  It is likely to maintain much of its intensity as it moves through the extratropical transition.

An upper level trough is steering Tropical Storm Alex toward the north-northwest and a general northwesterly motion is expected to continue for the next two or three days.  Tropical Storm Alex could end up south of Greenland over the weekend as a strong extratropical cyclone.