Overnight, the complicated forecast for soon-to-be Tropical Storm Imelda shifted. Now, forecasters believe it could avoid a direct landfall in the Carolinas and instead be yanked out to sea, likely by the now Category 4 Hurricane Humberto.
That still means a good deal of heavy rain for the Carolinas, and the tricky forecast is not certain — it could shift back to favoring landfall or a stalled out storm just off the coast dumping rain.
However, the forecast for the next few days remained relatively unchanged: a northern track along the east coast of Florida that stays far enough offshore to keep the worst of the impacts away.
The Miami office of the National Weather Service said early Saturday that the “most likely scenario” is that surf and sea conditions begin to go downhill starting Sunday, making the coast less safe for boaters and swimmers for a few days.
A “less likely scenario,” the weather service said, is that outer fringes of the system may blow bands of rain and gusty wind across South Florida early next week as the system passes by.
As of 8 a.m. Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said the system was still not organized enough to be labeled a tropical depression.
It’s still expected to strengthen into a depression later Saturday and then Tropical Storm Imelda by early Sunday, right before it crosses the Bahamas, much of which remains under a tropical storm warning.
The system is on track to pass Florida from Sunday evening through Tuesday morning, when it could strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane.
From there, the storm is expected to slow down and spend the next two to three days near the Georgia and South Carolina coast, although it is now no longer expected to come ashore.
“It should be noted that while this forecast keeps the system offshore, it would still be large enough and close enough to cause wind and coastal flooding impacts along the southeastern U.S. coast, as well as heavy rainfall/flooding concerns in inland areas,” forecasters wrote in the 5 a.m. update.
Long-range storm models are in pretty good agreement about the system’s path through at least Tuesday, the hurricane center said. From there, they diverge. A few take the storm inland over the Carolinas, others stall it out near the coast and still others drag it out to sea to get closer to the powerful Hurricane Humberto.
As of Saturday morning, Humberto was a Category 4 hurricane after undergoing extreme rapid intensification. It’s the third hurricane this season and the third to become a major hurricane.
John Morales, hurricane specialist at NBC6, noted on X that it was the first time since 1935 that the first three hurricanes in a season were all major hurricanes.
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