Hurricane Alex churned through the western Gulf of Mexico overnight, slowly picking up steam as officials in northeastern Mexico and southern Texas made preparations. The Category 1 storm, which became the first June hurricane to form on the Atlantic side of the United States since 1995, is expected to make landfall Wednesday evening. At 5 a.m. ET, Alex was moving west-northwest at 7 mph, the National Hurricane Center reported. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph and was about 235 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas, and 175 miles east of La Pesca, Mexico.