Florida and the Bahamas will see rain and blustery winds throughout the day Sunday and Monday from tropical depression nine — with the most intense conditions over the islands, which were under under a tropical storm warning.
Much of the Bahamas are expected to be soaked — with 6 to 8 inches of rain in the heaviest spots near Eleuthera and Abaco — and be swept by winds of 45 mph and up as the depression strengthens into Tropical Storm Imelda as early as today.
South Florida is likely to see far less rain and experience weaker winds, as overnight updates from the National Hurricane Center nudged the forecast track east again, keeping its core farther offshore.
“While it is too early to feel extremely confident, almost all of the reliable ensembles now keep the system offshore of the southeastern United States, though some impacts are still anticipated,” forecasters wrote in the 5 a.m. update.
Atlantic storms keep curving back toward sea. How long will it last?
The Miami office of the National Weather Service called for “periods of showers and storms throughout the day Sunday” as the storm crawls up the coast. The weather service in Tampa Bay said “no significant impacts are expected at this time” for west-central and southwest Florida.
Much of the east central Florida— from Martin County north to Volusia County — remained under a tropical storm watch. The coastal area there could see some gusts of moderately high winds — around 40 to 50 mph — as the system passes to the east on Monday and Tuesday.
As of 8 a.m. Sunday, the hurricane center held the system as a tropical depression, although it is expected to strengthen into Tropical Storm Imelda sometime Sunday.
The latest forecast shows the system creeping along Florida’s coast for the next few days — a slowdown from Saturday’s forecast.
That slower track is helpful to residents along the Southeast coast of the U.S., forecasters said, because it allows the weaker, slower Imelda to be influenced by the much more powerful Category 4 Hurricane Humberto.
That explains the sharp right hook in Imelda’s forecast track, instead of a once-predicted landfall in the Carolinas.
However, the hurricane center warned, the storm is large and slow enough that even if it does get yanked out to sea, it will likely dump a ton of rain on coastal swaths of the region.
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