Imelda's track shifts offshore with dangerous rip currents as Humberto pulls the storm east

AccuWeather

Tropical Storm Imelda is moving away from the U.S. coast, leaving rough surf and rip currents in its wake before it heads toward Bermuda.

Transcript

00:00For a closer look at Imelda's impacts, we're joined now once again by Allie Reed,

00:03live from Folly Beach, South Carolina. Back down by the water, Allie.

00:11Well, and Anna, lots of good news here out of South Carolina. The overall consensus of the day,

00:16speaking to not only tourists, but then the people that are living in areas like where we're live

00:21today in Folly Beach, is that they're happy. They're happy because overall, while we've got

00:26some overcast skies and some rain from time to time, for the most part, it's been a rather nice

00:31day. And that is because we've been talking about how Imelda really moved out to shore,

00:35which is good, or out into the sea for us, which is good news. But I do want to show you a couple

00:41of things, right? We still talk about those tropical storm-like conditions and what it can look like

00:45in places like here in South Carolina. We've got the pier just in the background, and it shows you

00:51some of those, that rough surf, the rip current. I think the interesting thing to note is what it

00:56looks like here versus what we saw a couple of weeks ago when we were dealing with Hurricane

01:00Aaron, right? As that moved up the East Coast, the waves not nearly as tall, not nearly as strong

01:06as what we were seeing a few weeks back. But certainly on a day like today, you want to avoid

01:11the water. And that is what a local officials are saying here. Unfortunately, there are some

01:15people that say, we're still going to go out, we're going to go surfing, we're going to go in the

01:18water. But that is at their own discretion. There are no lifeguards here, and it is very unsafe

01:23to really be in these waters. Now, what I want to do is take to some video. This is going to give

01:28you a better idea of what it looks like about 20 minutes from here in downtown Charleston.

01:31The thing that I was wondering about was the fact that Charleston is a low-lying area. That is an

01:37area that even with just a little bit of rain can cause some significant flooding down that way.

01:42So the big question was, was the rain that was going to come into town here over, you know,

01:4624 to 48 hours, was that going to potentially wreck havoc in a place like Charleston? Thankfully,

01:51what we're seeing so far is all good news, even down in that way. So I got talking to some people

01:56who, a lot of those areas, you know, people down in that way are a lot of tourists. One guy is here

02:01for a wedding for his brother, and he says they were holding on to hope leading into the weekend,

02:05thankfully coming out of it, they're breathing a sigh of relief. Take a listen.

02:10They were holding their breath a little bit. I think there's a little conversation around,

02:13are we going to be able to get out? But thankfully, it veered off a little bit, and everything works out

02:18pretty good. It looks like people are still out enjoying the day. I mean, we're from LA,

02:22so we don't see rain all that often. So getting a little bit of overcast weather is nice.

02:30Yeah, so he's getting a little bit of taste of Charleston weather the last couple of days.

02:33And thankfully, again, general consensus here, many people very, very happy with the weather,

02:39even though we've got some overcast skies. Really quickly, before I send it back,

02:42I do want to show you Jeff and Anna. Now, here's the water here. Now, Andy, follow me for one second,

02:47just to show how far the closest homes are here. So storm surge, things of that matter,

02:52was not going to be a concern in this part of the region. Again, the biggest thing was going to be

02:57potentially some flooding. Thankfully, so far this evening, we have not seen that here in Folly Beach

03:04or even in the downtown Charleston area. Stay with us in the next hour. That's where I'll be live from

03:09to give you kind of that closing perspective of what it looks like over that way.

03:13Thanks for the update, Allie. Certainly the ocean and the off-the-coast issues are the biggest here.

03:19It also highlights how all beaches are not created equal. I mean, you have the Outer Banks,

03:23where those things move. The narrow barrier islands like the Outer Banks would naturally move over

03:28the course of decade upon decade. Other coastal chunks along the southeast coast in South Carolina,

03:33far stronger and more robust, and they're resistant to that natural change that we often see there

03:40along the Outer Banks. So, again, easier places to build with a little more resistance to storms.

03:47As the sun sets, I think this is the last time I'm going to show the visible satellite loop today,

03:50but I just want to give us one last glimpse at the beginning of this loop here. You can see

03:54the sun setting on the powerful Hurricane Umberto, and it's beginning to set on Imelda as well.

04:01So we're going to switch over to the infrared loop here, and you can see some very large,

04:05broad, deep convection here with Umberto to the east, and then kind of the slightly more compact,

04:11a little less impressive Imelda, still strengthening. There have been a good number

04:15of lightning strikes. There has been a good number of lightning strikes near the center of this storm,

04:19but as we take a look at the net effect of all this here all week long, one thing for the week,

04:23we're looking at dangerous surf and rip currents and even minor coastal flooding. Some of the worst

04:28coastal flooding in Charleston, South Carolina is likely to occur tomorrow afternoon, with tomorrow

04:32afternoon's high tide just a few inches into minor flooding, maybe an inch or two into minor flooding

04:37there. But here we have Umberto's latest five o'clock numbers, max sustained winds of 140 mile

04:43per hour. Yesterday, in fact, back on Saturday, two days ago, this was a category five storm.

04:48The eye has become obscured by this one. It's going to be passing west and then north of Bermuda,

04:53but it's moving pretty swiftly north-northwest at 13 miles per hour as a category four hurricane.

04:59It's going to wrap around the northwest side of Bermuda, driven by the Bermuda Azores High,

05:03the western extent of this. Again, protecting Bermuda from Umberto won't be the case, though,

05:10for Imelda. Imelda is going to be moving right through Bermuda, most likely on Wednesday evening.

05:15So here's the side-by-side, and Imelda has strengthened by five miles per hour since 2 p.m.,

05:2060 mile per hour max sustained winds now 65 miles per hour. Barometric pressure down sharply from

05:25yesterday. So it's a strengthening storm. But as this upper-level low-pressure system weakens over

05:31the southeast U.S., what was once a pretty strong flow from south to north, a big draw into the

05:37eastern part of the storm circulation, is now weakening. So that's kind of feeble flow from the

05:41south. And as that becomes pretty lazy, you can see some areas off the South Carolina coast with no

05:46real predominant wind direction. Umberto is becoming a bigger factor, and that in tandem

05:51with the flow around the base of that general trough in the east, that's going to impart more

05:55of a west-to-east flow that's going to steer and redirect Imelda ultimately out to sea. So

06:01what a sweeping curve this is going to be here tomorrow evening. East movement more than north

06:06movement, and we are very concerned about the area around Bermuda. So Bermuda kind of hiding under

06:11our icon there for the category two plot on Wednesday evening, two days from now. So

06:17Anna, while this is going to be a nasty storm in Bermuda, this one's much more manageable for the

06:22east coast of the U.S. It certainly is. This has been the best scenario out of the three main ones

06:28that we were eyeing late last week for the most likely scenarios here. This is the fewer less impacts

06:33for the southeast. Now this doesn't mean we have zero impacts.

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