Tropical depression to bring rain, flooding

The clouds and storms creeping from the Bahamas toward South Florida have become a tropical depression, meaning South Florida can expect heavy rain through at least Tuesday.

Tropical Depression Three, packing maximum winds of 30 mph, formed Monday over the Bahamas about 120 miles southeast of West Palm Beach. With the heavy rain, there will be the potential for street flooding.

“Rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches are expected across the Bahamas and the east coast of Florida through Tuesday,” Richard Pasch, of the National Hurricane Center, wrote in an advisory.

The storm isn’t expected to move over South Florida but instead travel north in the water just off Florida’s Atlantic Coast.

“On the forecast track, the center of the depression should remain just offshore of the east coast of Florida over the next day or so,” Pasch said.

The depression isn’t expected to strengthen to a tropical storm or hurricane and wasn’t expected to live very long either.

“No significant increase

in strength is anticipated, and the depression is forecast to dissipate by Wednesday,” Pasch wrote.

Tropical depressions, characterized by maximum wind speeds of 38 mph, are the weakest grade of cyclone, under tropical storms and hurricanes.

They generally bring a lot of rain and some strong winds and while they’re capable of causing localized damage, they aren’t known for the sort of widespread damage or devastation wrought by tropical storms or hurricanes.

On Monday, the blob of storms that coalesced into the depression had been given only a 30% chance of development. By about midday that likelihood had doubled to 60%. Its name, Tropical Depression Three, refers it’s the third depression of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season.

The Hurricane Center says the depression was not expected to intensify to a tropical storm because of strong winds in the upper atmosphere that would cut the storm apart.

Local weather officials said there could be flooding.

“Regardless of tropical development, there will be an increased locally heavy rainfall and flooding threat across South Florida, especially for the east coast ... through at least Tuesday,” the Miami/South Florida branch of the National Weather Service said in a Monday advisory.

Then the storms are projected to head northeast near the coastlines of Georgia and South Carolina.

Tropical depressions don’t get names like tropical storms and hurricanes.

The next named storm will be Chantal.

Barry, a storm that churned in the Gulf before making landfall earlier this month, was the 2019 Atlantic season’s first hurricane.