The hurricane center warned that storm surges between 1-5 feet are likely between South Carolina and Martha's Vineyard, with the highest levels expected from the South Santee River in South Carolina to Cape Fear in North Carolina. The situation would worsen if the storm knocks out power across wide areas or forces evacuations of hospitals and nursing homes. The storm is expected to soak the East Coast with potentially flooding rain. While Isaias’ gusting winds remain capable of significant damage, its heavy rains may be the biggest punch the storm packs. Is a face mask much use in a tropical storm? Julia Wall/The News & Observer, via Associated Press. Soon after that, though, cases began to surge, with Grand Bahama emerging as a hot spot. Some business owners are worried that a one-two punch of the virus and a powerful storm could push their establishments over the edge. At 11 p.m. Eastern time, the center of the storm was about 50 miles off the Central Florida coast, near Cape Canaveral, and was moving north-northwest at about nine miles an hour, according to the National Hurricane Center. And now an early debut of hurricane season, to remind Florida that the inevitable convergence of the pandemic and the weather is likely to play out again, and perhaps much more seriously than this relatively mild storm, before this nightmare season ends. In addition, helicopters that take part in the recovery of the capsule must be able to fly and land safely. The estimated minimum central pressure is 995 mb (29.39 inches). “We’re now just about 20 meters off the ocean.” “Splashdown.” [cheering in background] “As you can see on your screen, we have visual confirmation for a splashdown.” “SpaceX copies and concurs. The storm left parts of Grand Bahama drenched with more than a foot of rain, and other islands in the archipelago were suffering from minor flooding and downed trees and power lines. Experts are currently predicting the storm will be Category 1 when it is near the coast. It should be too early to worry much about storms in Florida, Ms. Mazzei writes, but this annus horribilis would not have it any other way. A number of inland counties in North Carolina have been hit twice in recent years by river flooding — by Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018. Gov. Maximum sustained winds are 65 mph and it’s moving NNW (340 degrees) at 8 mph. flash flood warnings are already in effect, by Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018, Patricia Mazzei, our Miami bureau chief, writes. So far, the store is planning to stay open, “as long as it’s not as bad as past storms.”. Not if it gets wet. The state’s tourist destinations are hoping Tropical Storm Isaias will be less fearsome than forecast. Farther north, Myrtle Beach is preparing for a “lower to moderate threat” to arrive Monday night, said Steve Pfaff, a National Weather Service meteorologist, with sustained winds around 50 to 60 miles an hour and gusts up to 70. It weakened to a tropical storm Saturday evening. A public health crisis. Our health columnist Tara Parker-Pope says probably not: Face masks aren’t as effective when they are wet. Updated Aug 3, 2020 at 4:00pm ... Trackers & Radars for Hurricane Isaias. At the splashdown site, winds must be less than 10 miles an hour, and there are additional constraints on waves and rain. “It’s been devastating for us,” said Julie Spell Roberts, whose family has owned the inn since 1946. Here's the track as of 7 a.m. Monday. The center of the storm skirted the coast of Florida on Sunday without making landfall, and the southern part of the coast was left largely unscathed, aside from scattered power outages. An economic calamity, with more than a million Floridians out of work and an unemployment payment system that was one of the slowest in the country. Florida, tropical-storm-force wind gusts have been observed from Juno Beach northward to Port St. Lucie. Isaias is moving toward the north-northwest  near 8 mph (13 km/h) and this general motion is expected to Below is a map from the National Hurricane Center showing the storm’s projected path. Spell Roberts said. On the forecast track, the center of Isaias will move near the east coast of Florida today through late tonight. Robert L. Behnken and Douglas G. Hurley, the astronauts who blasted off to the space station in May in the Crew Dragon capsule built and operated by SpaceX, the rocket company started by Elon Musk, pushed off from the orbiting outpost on Saturday night. “With the right protection and sheltering, we can keep people safe from the storm while at the same time trying to avoid making the pandemic worse,” Mr. Cooper said on Twitter. But so far, they say, the odds of it becoming even a tropical depression, with sustained winds up to 38 miles an hour, are only 60 percent. The prime minister, Hubert Minnis, temporarily relaxed the restrictions to allow residents to prepare, but fear of the virus remained a significant obstacle. Isaias lit up the sky overnight with a spectacular show featuring thousands of lightning bolts, as seen from a U.S. weather satellite in space. ... and that will make it harder to pin down it's track as we go three to five days out. The storm’s heavy rains may be the biggest punch the storm packs. “But we roll with it, right? Only about 200 people in Palm Beach County stayed at public shelters, out of a population of almost 1.5 million, according to Bill Johnson, the county director of emergency management. Complicating the emergency response to the storm, reported coronavirus cases continue to rise sharply in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, and health officials have warned that their health care systems could be strained beyond capacity with the influx of new patients. In recent weeks as the coronavirus has been resurgent in many parts of the country, experts and politicians alike have implored people to protect themselves and others by always wearing a face mask in public. Does that apply when you have to be out in the gusting wind and driving rain? They can become soaked with condensation from your breath or sweat from your face, and some people think of wetting them deliberately to cool off in hot weather. The main goal of the site is to bring all of the important links and graphics to ONE PLACE so you can keep up to date on any threats to land during the Atlantic Hurricane Season! Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center are tracking another potential tropical cyclone that could develop in the western Atlantic in the next five days. It doesn’t take a tropical storm to drench a mask, of course. Updated Aug 3, 2020 11:40 PM EDT. As of Sunday, August 2 at 11 a.m. Eastern, the storm is at 26.9 N, 79.6 W. It’s about 55 miles SE of Fort Pierce, Florida and 120 miles SSE of Cape Canaveral, Florida. “Our biggest season is March, April and May. Many residents of the islands are still living in tents or in unrepaired houses that were damaged during Dorian. No storm-related deaths have been reported in the country, where memories are still raw from Hurricane Dorian, which ravaged Abaco and Grand Bahama last year and left at least 74 people dead. Tropical Storm Isaias is expected to strengthen Monday, Aug. 3, 2020, and regain its hurricane status, forecasters said. For businesses away from the shoreline, “it’s a wait and see game,” said Jay Slevin, general manager of Mellow Mushroom, a pizzeria a mile and a half from the ocean in Myrtle Beach. "Our biggest concern is storm surge. The latest forecast from the National Hurricane Center is below, and you can track Isaias here. The island was in the midst of a new two-week lockdown when tropical storm warnings were posted on Thursday. Hurricane watches were posted from South Santee River, S.C., north to Surf City, N.C., and tropical storm watches are posted all the way to Rhode Island. Here’s a report from NOAA about the storm. A paper surgical mask that gets soaked should probably be discarded, Ms. Parker-Pope advises, but a cloth mask can be washed, dried and re-used. Where is the storm now and where is it heading? Chip Reid is CBS News' national correspondent. So there is little need to wear a mask out in a rainstorm, Ms. Parker-Pope notes: “In fact, you should take it off and keep it dry, so if you need to duck into a store to wait out the storm, you have a dry mask to wear indoors.”. NASA and SpaceX selected seven potential sites in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico where the capsule and its passengers could splash down.  Beneath the clouds, strong winds and high surf pounded the coasts of Florida and Georgia causing flooding, beach erosion and the evacuation of a water-locked hospital in Cape Canaveral. It would have to strengthen further still, to sustained winds of 39 m.p.h. Florida is going through a summer of dread.