The storm is on track to skirt or hit the island’s southern edge, an area of ranches, small towns and Hawaiian Volcanoes National Park.
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For the past two weeks, Linda Stroughton with St. Johns County Emergency Management said the agency has been watching this storm.
Officials say a potential tropical storm is already forming off the coast of North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
That depression continued to bring torrential rains to western Cuba on Tuesday, the hurricane center said.
Some isolated tornadoes are also possible in northern/central Florida and far south Georgia on Thursday as the center moves inland. Sarasota, Bradenton, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Brandon and New Port Richey are among the communities included in the flood watch.
The National Weather Service has issued a Hurricane watch for areas of Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Tropical Depression continues to churn in the Gulf.
Tropical Depression 8 has not changed much in strength since Monday.
A growing tropical cyclone in the Gulf could impact Florida as a hurricane later this week, then ride up the eastern seaboard with tropical storm conditions for Labor Day weekend.
Both tropical depressions are forecast to become tropical storms before they reach land within the next few days. Tropical Depression Nine is just south of Florida.
Forecasters are also watching another tropical depression nearing the Carolina coast.
“Tomorrow night is going to be a significant issue since it is going to pass through North/Central Florida”, he said.
“And on the east side of that ridge, we’ll have a trough of low pressure going across the eastern part of the southeast USA and that will help to deflect the storm to the east toward the Florida Coast”.
Heavy rainfall and storms would accompany the winds. “Our teams state wide and locally are ready”. Any system that lingers in the Gulf in August or September will draw a long, watchful eye from forecasters and emergency planners, and Tropical Depression Nine is no different. The biggest threat, forecasters say, is along the Nature Coast from Homosassa north to Cedar Key starting Wednesday night and continuing through Thursday.
The tropical system should stay just offshore today as it brushes past the Outer Banks.
“The weather could get nice by the Sunday/Monday time frame”, he said. Highest winds were still 35 miles per hour.
T.D. 8 is almost stationary and is only 70 miles south of Cape Hatteras.
Forecasters earlier had anxious the area could get up to 5 inches of rain as the storm passed near the coast. It was moving to the north at 2 miles per hour. The afternoon will likely bring the biggest risk of heavy rain and flooding, especially on the Gulf Coast and near the lake, meteorologists said.
A storm has to have sustained winds of 39 miles per hour and a defined center of circulation to become a named storm.
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This NOAA satellite image taken Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016, at 10:00 a.m. EDT, shows an area of low pressure moving into the Pacific Northwest with cloudy skies and scattered rain showers.
