Bonnie’s grim weather meant that while residents of NY were sunning it up at Coney Island, those in Georgia, South Carolina and southern areas of North Carolina were kept away from the coast by pounding wind and rain.
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Tropical Depression Bonnie is continuing to soak portions of the Carolinas as it meanders near Charleston, South Carolina.
At 5 p.m., the center of Tropical Storm Bonnie was located 120 miles southeast of Beaufort, South Carolina.
The season’s second-named tropical storm formed four days before the official start of hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Tropical Storm Bonnie was downgraded to a tropical depression once it made landfall in SC this morning.
Near Myrtle Beach, authorities said they were anxious mostly about heavy rain causing unsafe driving conditions as thousands of bikers and their motorcycles make their annual trip to the area.
The storm was expected to move slowly northeast into North Carolina through Tuesday.
Despite the early-year activity, forecasters said Friday that 2016 will bring a typical storm season, which means 10-16 named storms, which bring winds of 39 miles per hour or higher.
Bonnie was expected to dump 2 to 6 inches of rain from central and eastern SC to the Georgia border. The highest amount reported locally was nearly an inch of rain in eastern Lexington County. Later Sunday, the storm was forecast to move up along the Mid-Atlantic coast and into New England on Memorial Day.
Tropical storm warnings are in effect for the SC coast.
There was a break in the rain in Charleston for most of this afternoon but it’s expected to pick back up tonight and last throughout the night and well into Monday.
On Monday morning, rainfall will be heavy at times with the heaviest rain falling along I-95 and to the south and east. It should not be as heavy north and west, but will still be raining.
No evacuations have been ordered.
Lifeguards at busy beaches warned swimmers about heavy surf and risky rip currents churned up by the wind that can pull them out to deeper water.
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Heavy rainfall will continue to be the main issue with some areas picking up as much as 1 to 2 inches of rainfall.
