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by WILL FOLKS
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Forecasters said Tropical Storm Imelda would be one of the most difficult systems to track – and they weren’t kidding. Last week, most projections called for the budding tropical wave to turn into a hurricane and slam directly into the Palmetto State – or worse, linger off the coast for several days before making impact.
Both scenarios would have been bad, but the latter forecast could have caused catastrophic flooding – particularly in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina.
Thankfully, Imelda is now forecast to make a hard right as Hurricane Humberto acts like a magnet pulling her out to sea. The interplay between these two tropical systems has been fascinating – and frustrating – for forecasters.
“Every model likely got it right once,” Florida-based weather expert Mike Boylan wrote on X. “And every model likely got it wrong once. Let’s face it. Mother Nature wins with this one. She’s not predictable. Even with the billions spent on models and more.”
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S.C. governor Henry McMaster – who declared a state of emergency in anticipation of Imelda’s anticipated arrival last week – is no doubt breathing a sigh of relief as the latest models show the system posing no threat to the eastern seaboard.
Imelda is currently at latitude 26.3° N longitude 77° W – or approximately 265 miles east-southeast of Cape Canaveral, Florida. The system was packing maximum sustained winds of 50 miles per hour (with stronger gusts) and was headed north at nine miles per hour, per the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
“On the forecast track, the center of the system is expected to start moving away from the northwestern Bahamas today and then turn east-northeastward, moving away from the southeastern U.S. by the middle part of this week,” forecasters noted.
Not only that, Imelda’s turn appears to be coming much sooner than originally forecast…
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Trends continue good for the southeast coast with finally #imelda
— Jim Cantore (@JimCantore) September 28, 2025
It’s slowing and it appears it will never make it north of the latitude of the FL/GA line before getting pulled east by Humberto. That should lessen rain impacts even farther for the southeast coast. pic.twitter.com/LlLPP5n0Qb
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“It’s slowing and it appears it will never make it north of the latitude of the Florida/Georgia line before getting pulled east by Humberto,” veteran meteorologist Jim Cantore wrote on X. “That should lessen rain impacts even farther for the southeast coast.”
That’s obviously a far better scenario than last week… when forecasters thought the storm would make landfall along South Carolina’s coast on Monday afternoon as a category one hurricane.
Well, most forecasters… apparently one model consistently had this storm’s path projected correctly.
“Google AI has consistently been showing a hard right turn,” Tampa Bay-based meteorologist Jeff Berardelli noted. “There were a couple of runs where it was closer to the coast, but overall the theme from Google AI was ‘out to sea.'”
FITSNews previously reported that forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had called for 13-19 total named storms this season – 6-10 of which were projected to become hurricanes and 3-5 of which were projected to become major hurricanes (i.e. with winds of 111 miles per hour or higher).
With only two months remaining in the season, though, there have been only nine named storms so far – and three hurricanes (although all three of them have been major storms). Only one of these systems – Tropical Storm Chantal – made landfall.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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1 comment
We sure coulda have used that rain, though.