The storm has fizzled into a subtropical depression as it hit the US state of Alabama.
Alberto is the first named storm of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season. It formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Friday.
At its height, Alberto, blasted sustained winds of 105km an hour. “It’s slowly weakening, and it’s not regaining any strength,” David Roth, of the National Hurricane Center, (NHC) told Reuters news agency.
However, the NHC warned that Alberto will still deliver heavy, potentially damaging rains to the US, with as much as 30cm in some areas in north Florida and Alabama.
Anchor Mike McCormick and photojournalist Aaron Smeltzer died when a tree felled by Alberto fell on their van on Monday. They were covering the storm in the state of North Carolina.
Below all the latest updates:
Alberto has become a post-tropical cyclone as it attempts to exit northeastern lower Michigan and heavy rainfall threat is fading near its centre, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in its latest advisory.
The system is located about 20 miles (30 km) west-southwest of Alpena, Michigan with maximum sustained winds of 30 miles per hour (45 km/h), the weather forecaster said.
“Flash flood watches remain in effect for the western Carolinas, northwest Virginia, and far eastern West Virginia,” the NHC added.
Rescue workers found two bodies after being alerted late Wednesday that the landslide had destroyed a home in Boone, North Carolina, in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, said Jeff Virginia, spokesman for Watauga County Emergency Management.
The system is located about 30km west-southwest of Alpena, Michigan with maximum sustained winds of 45 km/h, the weather forecaster said.
Flooding in central Cuba caused by torrential rainfall in the wake of the Subtropical Storm Alberto killed four people and prompted the evacuation of tens of thousands, Cuban state-run media said late on Tuesday.
Alabama’s largest electrical utility says about 20,000 homes and businesses are without power as Alberto moves through the state.
Weakening is forecast over the next 48 hours. It is expected to produce 6-15cm of rain from Alabama northward into the southern Great Lakes and from north Florida into the southern Appalachians through Thursday.
A tornado or two may occur on Tuesday from southern Kentucky to parts of Georgia, the NHC reported.
Forecasters have downgraded Alberto to a subtropical depression but say a flood threat persists as it continues to dump heavy rains.
Subtropical Storm Alberto weakened as it made landfall on the Florida Panhandle on Monday, a day after flooding from another storm tore through an historic Maryland town.
BREAKING: Subtropical Storm #Alberto makes landfall near Laguna Beach, FL with winds of 45 mph and a pressure of 994 mb. pic.twitter.com/f9TmSDnjPb
— Hurricane Tracker App (@hurrtrackerapp) May 28, 2018
More than 5,000 people were evacuated in Cuba over the subtropical storm.
3,000 of the evacuees were in the central province of Sancti Spiritus, according to the EFE news agency, and about 2,000 people were reportedly evacuated in the province of Villa Clara.
On Saturday evening, the storm was about 153km north of the western tip of Cuba and 440km southwest of the Dry Tortugas – almost 113km west of Key West, Florida – according to the NHC.
Subtropical Storm Alberto was roiling parts of coastal Mexico and Cuba. Both countries issued tropical storm watches.
At 06:00 GMT, Alberto was located about 90km south of Cozumel, Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 65km/h.