It's Official: Tropical Storm Bonnie Forms Near Bahamas, Moving Towards BP Oil Spill

(July 22) -- After a day of anticipation and dread, it's finally here: Tropical Storm Bonnie, the second named tropical storm this season, officially formed as of 6:15 p.m. EDT today, the National Hurricane Center reported.

The storm formed about 200 miles southeast of Nassau, the capital city of the Bahamas, near the Turks and Caicos Islands, and is traveling northwest at 14 mph, with minimum sustained wind speeds of 40 mph. Check out the approximate location of Bonnie at this time:

Current weather models are projecting that the storm will reach the Florida Keys overnight, and then head west to the Gulf of Mexico on a direct collision course with the BP oil spill. Workers have not been given orders to evacuate the area just yet, as the storm isn't expected to reach the spill site until Saturday. If and when an evacuation order is given, the containment cap that has been stopping the flow of oil into the gulf for the past week would remain sealed on the well, the U.S. Coast Guard says, according to CBS 5.

At its current rate, the storm should hit the Louisiana coast by Sunday afternoon. Check out the latest update of the forecast path via the National Hurricane Center:

Even as a tropical depression, the storm system is reported to have caused torrential rains and some flooding in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Puerto Rico, where a 14-year-old boy drowned over the weekend in a swollen river. Bonnie isn't expected to have as great an effect on Florida yet, but conditions are rapidly changing.

UPDATE 8 p.m. EDT: The National Hurricane Center has issued a warning/watch for the following locations in Florida as possible breakpoints: Bonita Beach, Golden Beach, Jupiter Inlet, Dry Tortugas and Ocean Reef.