Updated Aug. 2, 2020 10:56 AM
The second hurricane of the season dropped that title on Saturday afternoon, as conditions near the coast of Florida proved less favorable for strengthening and weakened Isaias to a tropical storm.
By daybreak on Sunday, the center of the storm was less than 50 miles away from the beaches of southern Florida, but the majority of the rain was still well offshore. Winds from Miami through Port St. Lucie were gusting between 15-30 mph.
These gusts were strong enough to cut power for some Florida residents with a transformer exploding in West Palm Beach on Saturday night amid the windy conditions.
This weather radar shows Isaias on Sunday morning with most of the storm's rain falling off the coast of Florida. (AccuWeather)
Along the Florida coast, in Palm Beach County and Indian River County, shelters were opened on Saturday night in advance of potential impacts that may relocate residents later in the weekend. The Florida Division of Emergency Management is offering free Uber rides to any residents looking to reach the shelters.
The shelters across Palm Beach County housed around 150 people by Sunday morning and were keeping their space and wearing masks, The Associated Press said. “We don’t anticipate many more evacuations,” emergency management spokeswoman Lisa De La Rionda told The AP.
The attitudes of many Floridians, including beachgoers, wouldn't suggest a tropical storm is on the horizon.
“Just a normal day at the beach,” Florida resident Joe Cherico calmly told AccuWeather National Reporter Jonathan Petramala on Saturday. “Just a little wind, a little breeze, nothing too serious. But yeah, there might be a Category 1 hurricane coming.”
However, the window of opportunity for Isaias to reach those beaches with hurricane strength, has closed. The storm was downgraded to a tropical storm as its maximum-sustained wind speeds dropped to 65 mph by Sunday morning.
On satellite, the storm's formation looked ragged on Saturday as it emerged over the Florida Straits, but by early Sunday morning, it appeared to organize slightly. Even after it appeared to grow in size, Isaias still needs to strengthen and organize further to return to hurricane status.
In its 11 a.m. advisory, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the tropical storm is sitting about 55 miles southeast of Fort Pierce, Florida, as it moves northwest at 8 mph.
Tropical Storm Isaias sitting just off the coast of Florida on Sunday morning. (Image/NOAA)
With Isaias no longer anticipated to return to hurricane strength, the hurricane warning along the east coast of Florida was replaced with a tropical storm warning early Sunday morning, ahead of Isaias' expected arrival.
“Don’t be fooled by the downgrade,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a press conference on Saturday afternoon, urging residents to remain vigilant as the tropical storm could still cause disruptions across the state.
The storm is expected to continue its course and could come within 25 miles of the Florida coast before it tracks farther north along the East coast.
On its trek toward Florida, Isaias made landfall in the Bahamas around 11 a.m. EDT Saturday on the northern part of Andros Island, NHC reported. The storm's maximum-sustained winds fluctuated between 80 and 85 mph throughout the morning, before the storm weakened a bit due to its interaction with land.
The storm came within 40 miles west-southwest of Nassau, the capital city of the Bahamas Saturday, after leaving behind scenes of flooding in Puerto Rico late in the week. The National Guard rescued at least 35 people who were swept away by raging floodwaters in Puerto Rico, including small children and infants, but one woman remained missing, The Associated Press reported.
At least two deaths have been blamed on Isaias' impacts, thus far, according to Reuters. Civil Defense officials said Chiche Peguero, 53, was killed when powerful winds caused a high-voltage power line to fall in Río San Juan, a city in the María Trinidad Sánchez province. A 5-year-old boy was also killed after a tree crushed his home on Thursday evening, according to elCaribe, a local news organization.
As the storm closed in on the Bahamas, residents were still rushing to complete preparations for the storm on Saturday, Paula Miller, Mercy Corps director for the Bahamas, told the AP, adding that people were still in long lines to buy gas on Grand Bahama.
“People are doing the best they can to prepare, but a lot of businesses still have not fully repaired their roofs or their structures” since devastating Hurricane Dorian struck in 2019, Miller said. “Even a lower-level storm could really set them back."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in every coastal county of Florida’s Atlantic Coast, stretching from Miami-Dade to Nassau counties, on Friday in preparation for the storm. The governor also sent a letter to President Donald Trump requesting a pre-landfall emergency declaration.
On Saturday morning, DeSantis noted on Twitter that the President had approved the request. "This will help our state respond quickly to any impacts from the storm," he wrote.
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“While current projections have the eye of Isaias remaining at sea, the situation remains fluid and can change quickly,” DeSantis said at a press conference on Friday. The Florida division for emergency management created new guidance on opening shelters amid the pandemic should they become necessary, he added. DeSantis called on Floridians to remain vigilant and heed warnings.
Hotel rooms have been readied along the East coast of Florida should those infected with COVID-19 need to evacuate and remain quarantined.
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People in any shelters will be urged to social distance and there will be more space in between families Other counties were taking a wait-and-see approach.
Florida has been experiencing a major surge in COVID-19 cases over the last month. On Friday, Florida reported a record number of COVID-19 fatalities for the fourth straight day, bringing the total death toll there since the pandemic began to nearly 7,000, data from John Hopkins University shows.
Mask-wearing customers could be seen shopping for needed groceries and other supplies ahead of the storm's anticipated arrival.
AccuWeather National Weather Reporter Jonathan Petramala reported live from Cocoa Beach, Florida, on Friday and noted that sandbag locations were being opened up all across Florida's east coast ahead of the storm's anticipated heavy rain.
Businesses were seen boarded up as beaches were closed in West Palm Lake and Lake Forth Worth, Florida, on Saturday, but other areas along the East coast looked like any normal day at the beach with people out and about instead of making final preparations.
Petramala talked with people in Cape Canaveral, Florida, who were enjoying the sand and surf Saturday despite the looming storm.
Surfer Kristie Lane told Jonathan Petramala that she was taking advantage of higher swells from approaching Isaias in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Saturday, Aug. 1, 2020. Forecasters warned that surf could be dangerous with increased rip currents through the weekend. (AccuWeather / Jonathan Petramala)
“We’re excited about it because we can be out here surfing with a swell that we don’t usually get,” Kristie Lane, a surfer, told Petramala on Saturday morning. Florida resident, Barry Stephens, told Petramala that he plans to hunker down during the storm but that he has lived through other storms and doesn’t plan to board up windows.
“We don’t ever board up because we’re inland. And we went through Charlie and didn’t have any windows broken during that time. So we pretty much just hunker down in the house and hope all goes well,” Stephens said.
The storm will unleash wind gusts of 40-60 mph with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 70 mph over eastern Florida Sunday before it makes its way toward the Carolinas. Winds of this magnitude will be strong enough to cause localized power outages and cause some minor damage.
Rainfall amounts in the range of 2-4 inches across eastern Florida will be common although some locally higher amounts are possible.
Isaias is expected to continue to encounter wind shear throughout Sunday. If wind shear amounts increase, the storm could have lower wind speeds as it passes Florida, forecasters say.
Farther north along the coast, the Carolinas were also bracing for the storm, which meteorologists say could make landfall near Wilmington, North Carolina, on Monday evening. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper issued a state of emergency for portions of the state on Friday and urged residents to prepare ahead of Isaias' approach.
Officials along the North Carolina coast weren't taking any chances given the possibility of a strike by Isaias. Mandatory evacuations were issued Friday on Ocracoke Island, one of the places hardest hit last year by Hurricane Dorian.
“Although the track and arrival of the [storm] could still change, now is the time for North Carolinians to prepare,” Cooper said. “[Storm] preparations will be different given the COVID-19 pandemic, and families need to keep that in mind as they get ready.”
North Carolina Emergency Management (NCEM) readied the National Guard should they need to respond to flood rescues, and the North Carolina Department of Transportation was also on standby with equipment should they need to respond to storm damage early in the week.
Isaias has already written a new page in the record books. It became the earliest "I-storm" in recorded history on Wednesday night, surpassing Irene, which formed on Aug. 7, 2005. The storm was also the earliest in the season to move through the Bahamas since 1995 when Category 1 Erin passed over the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama on Aug. 1-2, according to Colorado State tropical meteorologist Philip Klotzbach.
It’s not just meteorologists who need to keep a close eye on how storms develop and where they’re heading. AccuWeather users can now do that from home using our local hurricane tracker pages that provide detailed information about a specific location.
Click on the city name to track how Isaias will impact each place as it churns northward: Miami, Florida; Daytona Beach Florida; Jacksonville, Florida; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Hilton Head, South Carolina; Virginia Beach, Virginia; Ocean City, New Jersey; New York City; Boston, Massachusetts.
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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