Tropical Storm Bertha makes landfall in Louisiana, drenches Gulf Coast. See forecast map and its path.

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Tropical Storm Bertha made landfall in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, Wednesday afternoon. The storm is bringing rain to a large swath of the northern Gulf Coast, with a series of watches and warnings issued along its path.

Bertha is crawling westward "with little acceleration," the National Hurricane Center said. Forecasters said the storm would move over the New Orleans area Wednesday night and continue on toward Houston before dissipating by the end of the week.

Beaches were closed from Florida to Mississippi as Bertha's tropical-storm-force winds reached more than 100 miles outward from its center.

Map shows projected path

Bertha, the second named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, is forecast to stick close to the coast. The Miami-based hurricane center said it expects the system to continue gradually weakening as it moves along the northern Gulf Coast over the next couple of days.

As of the center's latest update Wednesday, the storm had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph, which have decreased gradually since Tuesday night.

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CBS News

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry urged residents not to be complacent about the potential flooding threat.

"It doesn't take a major hurricane to do major damage to communities in Louisiana," Landry said at a news conference Wedneseday.

Louisiana state climatologist Jay Grymes said he expected some pockets of flooding, but added, "With luck, this will be an in-and-out kind of situation."

Robbie Berg, a warning coordination meteorologist at the hurricane center, told The Associated Press that the storm's landfall itself shouldn't be too much of a concern.

"Landfall really doesn't have a whole lot of meaning in this particular case," Berg said.

Candice Henderson, who manages a beachside restaurant called the Crab Trap in Pensacola, told the AP that, for local residents, "this is just another storm." But officials in Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi still opened sites where people could acquire sandbags, while some beaches were closed to swimmers.

Warnings and watches in effect

Tropical storm watches were expanded Wednesday to include coastal parts of southwestern Louisiana and northeastern Texas as the storm traveled in their direction. Tropical storm warnings were in effect from the Alabama-Florida state line to Morgan City, Louisiana, as well as the area of New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain.

A tropical storm watch was also posted for the area west of Morgan City to Sargent, Texas, and for Lake Maurepas in Louisiana.

"Tropical storm conditions will continue spreading across portions of the northern Gulf Coast within the warning area today," the hurricane center said early Wednesday. "Tropical storm conditions are possible within the watch area in Louisiana by tonight and along the upper Texas coast by Thursday or Thursday night."

The storm was expected to produce 1 to 4 inches of rain, with isolated totals of 6 inches tin some areas through Thursday. "This rainfall may produce isolated flash flooding, especially in urban areas," the hurricane center warned.

The system could also produce storm surge, raising waters up to 3 feet in some locations along the coast.

Bertha comes weeks after the 2026 hurricane season's first named storm, Tropical Storm Arthur, which made landfall in June along the Gulf Coast of Texas.

The Associated Press and Ashton Altieri contributed to this report.

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