A brewing tropical storm could foil beach plans along the Southeast coast this holiday weekend.
Currently only a cluster of clouds and thunderstorms, there is a 60% chance the weather system will turn into a subtropical or tropical depression or storm within the next two days, the National Hurricane Center said. The chance it will develop within five days increases to 70%.
Even if an organized storm fails to develop, heavy rain, rip currents and high surf are possible for parts of the Southeast coast during Memorial Day weekend, weather.com said.
The storm will be named Bonnie if it reaches sustained winds of 39 mph. It that happens it would technically be the second named storm of the season, which officially begins Wednesday. Hurricane Alex formed far out in the Atlantic in January.
The latest system is forecast to track slowly toward the northwest through the weekend and end up near the South Carolina or North Carolina coast Sunday, AccuWeather hurricane expert Dan Kottlowski said. The hurricane center will send a plane Friday to examine the storm.
Tropical storms occasionally form in May. One formed last year, and two swirled in 2012, weather.com reported. Since records began in 1851, 21 tropical storms have formed in the month, and four became hurricanes, according to the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.
Federal meteorologists will announce their forecast for the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season Friday.
