Tropical Storm Chantal formed off the Southeast coast early Saturday morning and became the third named system of the Atlantic hurricane season, according to the National Hurricane Center.
While the storm is the first of the season to impact the United States, it isn’t a significant threat to land, but could drench parts of the Southeast and create risky beach conditions through the weekend.
The center of Chantal was roughly 150 miles south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, Saturday morning but its clouds and influence on weather extends to the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.
The storm’s sustained winds were 40 mph as of 8 a.m. ET Saturday. Slight strengthening is expected through Saturday night before Chantal makes landfall as a tropical storm Sunday morning in South Carolina.
A tropical storm warning was in place Saturday for portions of the South Carolina and North Carolina coasts.
Chantal is crawling northward at just 2 mph. A slow north to northwest movement will continue through Sunday morning.
The latest forecasts suggest the storm will kick off several rounds of thunderstorms that could drop more than 2 to 4 inches of rain on parts of the Carolinas, with isolated amounts of up to 6 inches by Monday.
The system is expected to bring 1 to 2 feet of storm surge in areas of onshore winds. Additionally, rough surf and rip currents will continue to plague much of the Carolina coastline through the holiday weekend.
Outside of the Southeast, most of the country will see ideal conditions for July 4th weekend, particularly in the Northeast and West, where calm, mostly clear skies are expected. The Southeast is likely to dry out by Tuesday.
Texas and the Upper Midwest could continue to see strong to severe thunderstorms with damaging winds and hail through the weekend. Torrential rainfall triggered deadly flooding in Texas early Friday morning as rivers rushed beyond their banks and flooded nearby campgrounds and homes.