Moving west at 7 miles per hour, it is forecast to become a named storm Monday night or Tuesday before turning to the north Tuesday night.
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The storm is now classified as Tropical Depression Nine, with maximum sustained winds of 35 miles an hour.
Tropical Depression Nine, south of Florida, is also expected to become a tropical storm by Tuesday.
At the 5 p.m. Monday advisory, tropical depression 9 was located about 195 miles west-southwest of Key West and about 160 miles west-northwest of Havana Cuba. Rainfall could reach six inches or more in some locations, especially in the Florida Keys, the far southern Florida peninsula, Cuba and the southwestern Bahamas. That depression is expected to become a tropical storm overnight and threatens to bring wind and rain to eastern North Carolina. The Hurricane Center’s official track calls for the storm to make a landfall along Florida’s Big Bend on Thursday with maximum sustained winds around 60 miles per hour, and then cross the state, exiting near Jacksonville. That’s just 201 miles (340 km) southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
Atlantic Coast cities that may be impacted by the storm range from the Cape Canaveral Seashore in Central Florida north through such destinations as Daytona Beach, Fla.; Jekyl Island and Savannah, Georgia; Hilton Head, Charleston and Myrtle Beach, S.C.; and Wilmington, N.C. The minimum central pressure reported by the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter is 1011 millibars. If that prediction bears itself out, the storm would come ashore as a tropical storm along the western coast of Florida, somewhere between Tampa and the Panhandle.
This more favorable environment will help it possible increase to Tropical Storm strength, possibly by the end of today (Monday). Winds: NE 5-10 miles per hour. A full blown hurricane is set to skirt past the Hawaiian Islands. Forecasters say it posed no immediate threat to land. Tuesday afternoon will feature a Summer-like set up in terms of afternoon heat and rain coverage.
Forecasters say Gaston should slow down during the next day or so and turn northward on Monday.
The storm is expected to move slightly north and then east over the next few days, making landfall in Florida Thursday.
NOAA updated its 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook Aug. 11, calling for a higher likelihood of a near-normal or above-normal season. The good news for us is that the models are in pretty good agreement for Gaston to stay to the east of Bermuda, in the open waters of the Atlantic.
There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect early Saturday.
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In North Carolina, Jennifer Scarborough is the manager of a marina in Hatteras.
