(Bloomberg) -- A storm that would be named Bonnie threatens holiday cookouts and celebrations along the U.S. coast from North Carolina to Georgia over the Memorial Day weekend.
If the low-pressure system now northeast of the Bahamas develops, it will become the second named storm in the Atlantic in 2016 prior to the hurricane season’s official June 1 start. There’s a 50% chance it could form by Saturday.
“With Memorial Day weekend approaching, all interests along the southeast coast from Georgia through North Carolina should monitor the progress of this low,” Lixion Avila, a senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center, wrote in an advisory.
In January, Alex became the first hurricane to form in the Atlantic that early since 1938. The official six-month season begins Wednesday and there’s a chance it could be an above-average year for storms because there will be less wind shear across the basin as El Niño fades in the equatorial Pacific.
|Slow growth
Wind shear in the area and cooler waters deep in the Atlantic could slow the low’s development into a named storm, said Paul Walker, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania.
“It’s probably likely it does develop,” he said.
Whether Bonnie is tropical or subtropical remains to be seen. Tropical systems differ from other storms because they have a warm core, their strongest winds are at their center and they maintain their power by extracting heat energy from the ocean. A sub-tropical storm is a hybrid system.
If Bonnie forms, there’s an increased possibility for rip currents, gusty winds and heavy surf along Atlantic beaches through the holiday weekend, Walker said.
While forecast models will be able to make better predictions once the system becomes more organized, the current thinking is that it will drift northwest and be off Charleston, South Carolina, by Sunday, he said.
A U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane is scheduled to fly into the system Friday, said the hurricane center in Miami.
Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.