Tropical storm may dampen S.C.’s holiday weekend

Coastal South Carolina and a tropical weather system offshore in the Atlantic Ocean are almost certainly going to spend the Memorial Day weekend together, forecasters said Friday evening.

The unnamed weather system was upgraded to a tropical depression Friday evening by the National Hurricane Center with winds of 34 miles per hour. It was expected to strengthen into Tropical Storm Bonnie overnight Friday, pushing winds of at least 39 miles per hour.

The National Hurricane Center issued a tropical storm warning for the S.C. coast Friday afternoon, from the Savannah River to Little River Inlet.

“Regardless of whether this develops into a tropical depression or a named storm, the Carolinas are going to get some impact from this,” said Michael Lowry, a hurricane specialist with the Weather Channel. “The bulk of the impacts will probably be closer to the coast, but there’s a lot of moisture that this is going to bring up with it, even up into the mid-Atlantic states, so there’s the threat for some heavy rainfall as this gets closer to land on Saturday and Sunday, even into Monday.”

The Midlands of South Carolina should begin seeing rainfall by Saturday evening, according to the National Weather Service at Columbia Metropolitan Airport. The chance of rain is 50 percent Saturday night in the Midlands, rising to 60 percent Sunday and Sunday night, the weather service said.

The storm is expected to make landfall in South Carolina in the Charleston area between late Saturday and early Sunday morning.

The Columbia area could see 2 to 3 inches of rainfall from some bands of the storm, said Hunter Coleman, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. If the storm stalls on the coast, those totals could be significantly higher, he said. Forecasts as of late Friday predicted the storm would turn northeast at the coast, in which case rainfall totals would lessen for the local area.

The National Hurricane Center sent planes into the storm Friday to observe conditions, then issued warnings for the S.C. coast. Bonnie would be the second named tropical storm of the season. The hurricane season officially begins June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.

The tropical weather system will surely dampen holiday activities on Carolina coast, and weather experts advised beach goers to devise alternate plans inside for the long, three-day Memorial Day weekend.

This story was originally published May 27, 2016 at 8:23 PM.