The center of the storm was over the city of Jacksonville when it was given tropical storm status late Tuesday night – but that decision caused some controversy.
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Tropical storms are systems generating sustained winds between 39 and 74 miles per hour.
Elsewhere, Tropical Storm Ian is moving north in the central Atlantic but is no threat to land.
Tropical Storm Julia is bringing heavy rain to the northeast coast of Florida and southeast Georgia.
Tropical Storm Julia is making for a rainy Wednesday for sections of north Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
The watch covers all of New Hanover and Brunswick counties and will be in effect from 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday evening. Forecasters expected the storm to linger off the Carolina coast over the weekend and eventually meander further out into the Atlantic. Its maximum sustained winds were near 40 miles per hour (64 kph).
Water conditions will remain rough along the SC coast; some improvement is expected south of the Savannah River. But there is little chance of this becoming a tropical system, although we will continue to monitor it to make sure nothing changes.
Ian was no threat to land.
Forecasters had issued flood watches, concerned about additional rains coming less than two weeks after Tropical Storm Hermine sloshed across the state.
If and when the system is given a name, the next name on the 2016 official naming list would be Karl.
Netweather forecaster Nick Finnis said: “Towards the end of the week, we face a two-pronged attack from a low pressure system moving northeast towards southern Britain while a frontal system moves in from the west”.
That disturbance, located over the northwestern Gulf, was expected to move toward the Texas coast over the next few days and had only a 10 percent chance of development.
The Atlantic Hurricane Season peaks each year between mid-August and mid-October.
The Atlantic Hurricane season officially runs through November 30.
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An Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft is scheduled to investigate the storm this afternoon, the hurricane center said.
