Fred weaker, but likely to drench Florida as tropical storm

Image via AP.

Tropical Depression Fred headed for a drenching of Cuba and the Bahamas on Thursday on a forecast track that would carry it toward south Florida as a tropical storm by Saturday.

The main threat to the U.S. appeared to be heavy rains affecting Florida and parts of the Southeast starting on Friday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

The latest NHC forecast projects Fred to cross the Florida Keys late Saturday morning or early Saturday afternoon, then skirt the Florida Gulf Coast through the rest of Saturday and Sunday before making landfall east of Apalachicola early Monday morning. The NHC forecast narrowed its forecast cone, showing the storm could track northward anywhere within the western two-thirds of the Florida peninsula, or as far west as 100 miles out to sea.

The NHC forecast said 3 to 5 inches of rain were expected across the Florida Keys and southern peninsula by Monday, with isolated maximums of 8 inches.

Already a tropical storm, Fred weakened back to depression force by its spin over Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where it knocked out power to some 300,000 customers and caused flooding that forced officials to shut down part of the country’s aqueduct system.

Heavy rains continued to pound Hispaniola, which the two nations share, on Thursday.

The Hurricane Center said the storm had maximum sustained winds of 35 mph Thursday morning while centered about 40 miles  west-southwest of Great Inagua Island in the southernmost Bahamas and 80 miles northeast of Guantanamo, Cuba.

It was heading west-northwest at 16 mph , a pace that was expected to slow.

Fred was expected to produce 3 to 5 inches of rain across the Dominican Republic and the western Bahamas, as well as 1 to 3 inches over Haiti, the Turks and Caicos, the eastern Bahamas, and Cuba.

Fred became the sixth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season late Tuesday as it moved past the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

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Republished with permission from The Associated Press.