From AccuWeather:
Still days away from the official start of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season and the Southeast coast of the U.S. on Wednesday was dealing with its second named tropical system in less than two weeks. A disturbance that left Miami streets underwater over the Memorial Day weekend rapidly strengthened off of the South Carolina coast Tuesday night and was named Tropical Storm Bertha early Wednesday morning.
There was definitive spin near the center of the disturbed area just offshore of the South Carolina coast during Wednesday morning.
Winds offshore have been sustained in the 35-40 mph range with gusts between 40 and 50 mph Wednesday morning. A tropical storm has sustained winds of 39 mph or greater. Based on this, and the visible circulation on radar and satellite, the National Hurricane Center upgraded the feature to Tropical Storm Bertha.
This image was captured from AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski and his tropical weather blog from Wednesday morning, May 27, 2020.
The feature will bring heavy rain, rough seas, dangerous rip currents and even coastal flooding from the upper coast of South Carolina to the coastal areas of North Carolina into Wednesday afternoon.
“Interaction with land and fast movement will be a great limiting factor with major strengthening of this feature, but the main impact will be a continuation of heavy rain moving forward during the middle of the week over the Carolinas then to some extent farther north over the central Appalachians from later Wednesday night to Thursday,” AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno said.
A general 1-3 inches of rain is forecast with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 8 inches over the Carolinas into Wednesday night.
In this case, strengthening will quickly end as the poorly defined center of the feature moves well inland and away from the coast later Wednesday.
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