An area of heavy rain and thunderstorms off the coast of North Carolina and South Carolina Monday morning, designated Potential Tropical Cyclone 8 (or PTC 8 for short), is the next potential Atlantic system that could affect the continental United States.
As of 11 a.m. ET Monday, the center of the system, located 75 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina, was producing tropical storm-force winds and torrential rain, particularly from Wilmington to Carolina Beach, North Carolina.
The storm comes a week after Hurricane Francine made landfall in Louisiana and left hundreds of thousands of people without power for days.
Several locations had already recorded double-digit rainfall from the latest system, including more than 15 inches in Carolina Beach, according to the National Weather Service in Wilmington.
In addition to the rain reports, impressive wind reports were also recorded from buoys in the Atlantic, just off the mid-Atlantic coast. Among these, a NOAA buoy at Frying Pan Shoals, North Carolina, reported a sustained wind of 47 mph with a gust of 56 mph, another NOAA buoy off Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, reported a sustained wind of 38 mph and a gust of 54 mph.
Meanwhile, Wilmington, North Carolina, recorded a 60 mph wind gust earlier Monday morning.
As the system slowly moves toward the coast, it lacks time over open water to organize enough to form a tropical or subtropical system. Even if it doesn’t become a named system, the area of unstable weather will still move inland Monday afternoon between Charleston and Myrtle Beach.
Named or not, this will not change the wind and rain impacts expected with the system.
Tropical storm conditions are expected along the Carolina coast throughout the day Monday, where heavy rain, strong winds and isolated tornadoes will all be possible.
Rain will persist in the mid-Atlantic on Tuesday and Wednesday, affecting parts of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and New York.
A slight storm surge of 1 to 3 feet is expected from the South Santee River, South Carolina, to Oregon Inlet, North Carolina, and along the Neuse, Bay, Pamlico and Pungo rivers in North Carolina.
Six million people are under flood watch from northeastern South Carolina to central North Carolina. The flood watch includes Myrtle Beach, Wilmington, Cape Hatteras and Raleigh.
In terms of precipitation forecasts, upcoming totals for South Carolina and southeastern North Carolina could reach 4 to 8 inches, with locally higher amounts up to 10 inches, by Monday evening.
For interior North Carolina, 2 to 4 inches, with locally higher amounts up to 6 inches, could fall by Tuesday.
And across Virginia, 1 to 3 inches of rain is possible through Wednesday.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic basin, Tropical Depression Gordon continues to track the open ocean. It is expected to strengthen into a tropical storm by the end of the week as it meanders over the Atlantic without posing a threat to land.
Beyond the mid-Atlantic system today and Gordon in the tropical Atlantic, attention will then turn to the western Caribbean Sea this weekend, where global forecast models point to possible development in that region heading into the last week of September.
