Many are tracking the potential path of Imelda and whether it will be a hurricane or tropical storm by the time it makes landfall in the United States, particularly Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. For clarity, Imelda is not yet a named tropical storm or hurricane at the time of writing (it’s called “Invest 94L” for now), but several weather models project that the storm moving past Puerto Rico on September 25, 2025 will eventually develop into a Hurricane Imelda by the time it reaches the southeastern coastline of the US. However, the exact strength and path for Imelda has been difficult to track because it’s developing close to Tropical Storm Humberto, and it’s exceedingly rare to see two potential hurricanes forming side by side like this in the region.
Will Imelda’s path hit the US?
It’s predicted that the Imelda is likely to hit as a hurricane in the US near North Carolina and South Carolina by around Monday, September 29.
This projection comes from the European weather models as reported by meteorologist Brian Shields on September 25. Multiple models, including the American GPS model and Canadian CMC model, agree that Imelda will eventually develop into a tropical storm and then a hurricane. A September 25 report by the US agency NOAA says that it has a 90% chance of becoming a tropical storm over the next seven days.
However, the path of Imelda has been tough to predict, as we have reported on Monday. The storm’s most likely path has it turning into a tropical storm by the time it hits the Bahamas and then moving up the East Coast, mainly missing Florida but then pushing north toward the Carolinas. That’s around the time it could be upgraded to a hurricane.
It’s possible that the storm will slow its progress west due to a front moving across the southern US states and because of Tropical Storm Humberto forming nearby. When two intense storms get close, that could make them spin around each other in something called the Fujiwhara effect. But Shields believes that Humberto is moving too slowly to pull Imelda east that much, so the forecast has the potential to change wildly over the next few days.
