MIAMI _ Tropical Storm Gordon continued to barrel across the Gulf of Mexico early Tuesday, headed for the north coast as a likely hurricane and leaving behind a soggy mess in South Florida.
In an 8 a.m. advisory, National Hurricane Center forecasters said the unexpected Labor Day storm should make landfall Tuesday night as a weak hurricane, somewhere between the Florida Panhandle and Louisiana. Storm surge warnings and watches extended across most of the northern Gulf Coast early Tuesday, along with hurricane and tropical storm warnings.
Gordon was located about 190 east, southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi, moving west, northwest at 15 mph Tuesday morning, with sustained winds of 65 mph. Tropical storm force winds extend 60 miles from Gordon's center.
As it crosses the Gulf Tuesday, forecasters say the storm will encounter some upper level wind shear, the hurricane-smothering atmospheric winds that up to now have helped keep the season in check. However, those winds should not be strong enough to keep the storm from intensifying to a Category 1 hurricane.
Throughout the weekend, Gordon defied forecasts by strengthening more rapidly than expected. Saturday morning, forecasters predicted the system would not form until it passed over Florida and entered the Gulf. By Saturday evening, however, it had blossomed into a depression and by Sunday morning intensified to a Tropical Storm about 10 miles west of Key Largo.
"Gladly watching Gordon depart Florida," forecaster Eric Blake tweeted late Monday. "Not too often you see a TS spin up that close to land on radar, basically unexpected."
The storm dumped heavy rain through must of the day, drenching parts of South Florida with up to five inches. The National Weather Service's Miami office ended a flood watch at midnight, but continued to warn Tuesday morning that a high risk of rip currents remained along the east coast, from Miami to Jupiter.
Forecasters are also keeping watch on Tropical Storm Florence in the central Atlantic. Tuesday morning, the storm had sustained winds of 70 mph, just below hurricane strength. It's not expected to strengthen through the day and could slightly weaken Wednesday, but then gain steam as it heads northwest toward Bermuda, far from Florida.
A third system, a tropical wave just east of the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa, is also teeing up and should become a tropical depression by the end of the week or over the weekend. Forecasters gave the system a 70 percent chance of forming over five days as it moves slowly west.
