U.S. threat building with tropical storm watch in Florida

A tropical storm watch has been set for parts of Florida as a system that followed Dorian into the Bahamas, dumping as much as 6 inches of rain on those hurricane-devastated islands, targets the U.S. East Coast.

Maximum sustained winds are near 30 mph (45 kilometers) with higher gusts, and the storm is traveling at around 6 mph, according to an 8 a.m. EST time report by the National Hurricane Center. It is expected to strengthen in the next 48 hours, and a storm watch is now in place from the Jupiter Inlet in Florida to the state’s Flagler-Volusia county line.

An earlier model suggested the system might enter the Gulf of Mexico, the heart of America’s offshore energy production. Instead, it will skirt the Florida coast over the weekend, reaching Georgia by late Sunday, said Adam Douty, a meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc.

“Today there is pretty high confidence it doesn’t look like it is going to head into the Gulf of Mexico,” Douty said. Until a low-level center forms for the storm, forecast models will struggle with it, he said.

A U.S. Air Force Reserve hurricane-hunter aircraft is flying out to investigate the system. These flights will search out the storm’s top winds and its structure, helping to pinpoint its strength, makeup and direction.

For two days, the system has been sitting over the part of the Bahamas hit hardest by Dorian.

The island nation is still struggling to recover from that storm, which stalled over the Bahamas as a Category 5 hurricane with 180-mph winds. At least 50 people are confirmed dead from Dorian, hundreds are missing and the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama are devastated. If the disturbance gets better organized and gains strength, it will be called Humberto, becoming the eighth storm named across the Atlantic in a season that’s been slightly more active than the average.

On Wednesday, the health minister for the Bahamas, Duane Sands, said teams of dog handlers from the U.S., Canada and Belgium are uncovering more and more dead bodies among the debris. In a nation where 80% of the land is less than 32 feet (10 meters) above sea level, people were confronted by “20 feet of ocean in their backyard,” Sands said.

The six-month Atlantic season reached its statistical peak on Sept. 10, with its most active phase lasting until early October. The season ends on Nov. 30.

Related: 

• U.S. hurricane season is unnecessarily dangerous
• Raise home now or sink later
• Are you ready for catastrophe season?

Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.