Tropical depression on track to miss region

The tropical depression that formed near the Bahamas on Friday afternoon is expected to become Tropical Storm Humberto on Saturday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The depression is expected to move very close to or over parts of the northwestern Bahamas on Friday and Saturday, the hurricane center said in the 8 p.m. Friday advisory. It’s the same area of the Bahamas that just days earlier suffered catastrophic damage from Hurricane Dorian.

After the Bahamas, the storm was expected to stay well enough offshore to pose little to no direct impacts to South Florida south of Jupiter, forecasters said, although it was still forecast to dump about two to four inches of rain along the U.S. Atlantic Coast from central Florida to South Carolina.

“The forecast track has continued to shift east and farther away from South Florida,” said Robert Molleda, a meteorologist with the Miami-South Florida forecast office office of the National Weather Service.

“Tropical storm force winds will remain well

offshore,” Molleda said in an email. “As a result, no direct/significant impacts from the system are anticipated across South Florida.”

As of Friday at 8 p.m., the depression was about 260 miles east-southeast of Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, and was packing winds measuring 30 mph. The storm was moving to the northwest at 8 mph.

A Hurricane Hunter aircraft had flown out to the depression on Friday to investigate.

Although the depression could bring 2 to 4 inches of rain to the Bahamas, the hurricane center said it is not expected to produce any significant storm surge to the island chain.

The forecast track has the depression becoming Tropical Storm Humberto by Saturday afternoon and moving parallel to Florida’s east coast. Then Humberto is expected to turn to the right, or to the northeast, and move parallel to the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas while strengthening to a hurricane on an eastward journey in the Atlantic toward Bermuda.

According to the National Hurricane Center’s cone graphic, the future Humberto was expected to be a hurricane by 2 p.m. Monday.

Along with a tropical storm warning for the northwestern Bahamas, a tropical storm watch was in effect for the east coast of Florida from Jupiter Inlet north to the Flagler-Volusia County line near Daytona Beach.

A warning means tropical storm conditions are expected within a given time frame, in this case about 36 hours. A watch means such conditions are possible within a given time frame, in this instance 48 hours.

No watches or warnings had been issued for Broward or Miami-Dade counties or the Florida Keys.

Along with the system moving through the Bahamas, the hurricane center is monitoring a cluster of three other disturbances way out in the open Atlantic several hundred miles east of the Caribbean. One of them has been given a 20% chance of development, another has been given a 30% chance, and the third has been given a 50% chance.