Meanwhile Tropical Storm Gaston and two other disturbances were also being watched in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.
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The tropical wave on everyone’s watch list has been hard to forecast because without an identified center, computer models used to forecast a path of a system don’t have a good place to start.
The hurricane was forecast to turn north on Monday, and the NHC’s five-day forecast cone has Gaston then moving northeast and into the open Atlantic by Thursday. This system is moving northwestward through the Straits of Florida at about 10 miles per hour.
The weather system known as Invest 99-L was expected to move west-northwest toward the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
The system is expected to drop up to 2 inches of rain starting Saturday in South Florida with possible flash flooding Sunday in the Miami area and the Florida Keys.
Rains were likely to continue over portions of eastern and central Cuba Saturday night and Sunday, the center said.
Heavy rain was expected to fall from Louisiana to southeastern Texas for the next few days.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami says Gaston reformed as a hurricane Saturday night, clocking 85 miles per hour (140 kph) winds.
The system, called Invest 91L, had a 30 percent chance of development over the next 48 hours as it moves westward toward the Carolina coast.
As of the last advisory from the hurricane center, at 4 a.m. CDT, Tropical Storm Gaston was located about 820 miles east-southeast of Bermuda and was moving northwest at 15 mph. Upper-level winds are preventing significant development of the kind needed for the storm to become a hurricane. The Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) initially estimated the Atlantic would see between 10 and 16 storms this year, but recently updated its prediction to 17.
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Shower and thunderstorm activity associated with the weather system known as Invest 99-L increased Friday afternoon, but the system remained disorganized, the National Weather Service said.
