Forecasters focus on two systems after Nicholas makes landfall in Texas

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC/AP) - The next two tropical systems with the chance to become at least a tropical depression could develop within days of each other.

The National Hurricane Center is watching a tropical wave off the western coast of Africa that is showing signs of better organization.

The system, located about 400 miles southeast of the southern Cabo Verde Islands, is producing showers and thunderstorm activity.

“It’s more likely to develop into a tropical depression, tropical storm over the next 24 to 48 hours,” Meteorologist Joey Sovine said.

There is a 90 percent chance the wave will become a tropical depression within five days and a 70 percent chance it will develop over the next 48 hours.

But how strong the storm gets remains in question, Sovine said.

It is likely to become the year’s 15th named storm and would take the name Odette.

He said it is far too early to be able to predict where it will go, but he said some models do show the storm taking a northerly turn in the Atlantic.

Closer to home, forecasters are also watching an area of low pressure they say has a medium chance of developing into a tropical depression by the weekend. That system is a couple of hundred miles north of the Bahamas.

Though this system is likely to develop to the east of the Carolinas, the latest computer models have it staying out to sea, Sovine said.

“It’s going to be far enough off our coast that we won’t see any impacts from that,” he said.

If it reaches tropical storm strength, the next name after Odette on the 2021 list is Peter.

Nicholas makes landfall in Texas

Tropical Storm Nicholas hit the Texas coast as a hurricane and dumped more than a foot of rain along the same area swamped by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

The National Hurricane Center says the storm made landfall on the eastern part of the Matagorda Peninsula early Tuesday and was soon downgraded to a tropical storm. It’s also knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people, drenching storm-battered Louisiana and bringing the potential for life-threatening flash floods across the Deep South.

Meteorologists say Nicholas is moving slowly but is not expected to bring the massive amount of rain that Harvey did.

While the rain chance will increase for the Lowcountry over the course of the week, Sovine says the latest models predict only about an inch or so of rain for the Lowcountry over the next seven days.

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