A tropical storm warning was issued for the South Carolina coast as a tropical depression formed in the Atlantic about 435 miles southeast of Charleston, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
The storm, with top winds of 35 miles per hour, could bring as much as 4 inches of rain from Georgia to North Carolina, the Miami-based center said in a 5 p.m. EST advisory.
"The depression is expected to become a tropical storm later tonight or on Saturday," the advisory said.
The storm would be named Bonnie and would be the second of 2016. Hurricane Alex formed in January, almost six months before the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through Nov. 30.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, parent agency of the hurricane center, said 2016 should be a near-normal season with 10 to 16 named storms. A system gets a name when its winds reach tropical-storm strength of 39 mph.
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