Forecasters: Tropical Storm Bonnie Likely to Form, Threaten Florida and BP Oil Spill Site

(July 22) -- The tropical depression that forecasters have been monitoring today has maintained its strength and might become Tropical Storm Bonnie tonight or Friday. The system is a threat for southern Florida from later tonight through Friday and will move through the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend, affecting cleanup operations of the BP oil spill.

The depression, as of late afternoon, had a sustained wind of 35 mph, just 4 mph below the criteria of a tropical storm. National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasters are uncertain about how quickly the system will strengthen into a tropical storm. Tropical storm warnings are in effect for parts of the Bahamas, both coasts of southern Florida and all of the Florida Keys and Florida Bay.

(Image courtesy of NOAA)

The system will move northwestward tonight and is expected to pass between Florida and Cuba on Friday before emerging in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Bands of thunderstorms will produce heavy rain in the Bahamas and southern Florida. Tropical-storm-force wind gusts (over 39 mph) might cause localized damage.

Regardless of its intensity when moving through Florida, the system will have a second opportunity to develop and strengthen once it emerges in the Gulf of Mexico later Friday. However, current NHC forecasts indicate that it will not reach hurricane status as it tracks northwestward through the Gulf over the weekend, potentially moving directly into the spill area.

The Associated Press reported that dozens of ships in the Gulf of Mexico were already preparing to evacuate today ahead of the developing storm system. The threat of bad weather brought the deep-sea effort to plug BP's ruptured oil well to a near standstill.

Officials ordered technicians trying to plug the well to stand down because they needed several days to clear the area. The government's point man on the spill, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, also said the weather could require reopening the cap that has contained the oil for nearly a week, allowing oil to gush into the sea again for days while engineers wait out the storm.

The potential weather effects on the oil spill area would largely depend on how much the system is able to strengthen as it moves northwestward through the Gulf of Mexico. At the very least, though, tropical storm conditions are expected, with frequent thunderstorms, very rough seas, strong wind and an increased onshore flow.

The depression is not the only area of disturbed weather being monitored by forecasters. NHC forecasters are giving an area of disturbed weather in the Bay of Campeche, in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico, a 50 percent chance of intensifying into a tropical depression or tropical storm before it moves inland over eastern Mexico over the weekend.