A tropical wave moved offshore western Africa on September 16th. The wave moved westward, passing over Cabo Verde on the 17th. Thunderstorm activity waned as it crossed the tropical Atlantic, increasing as the wave approaches the Leeward Islands on the 21st and 22nd. The active wave brought gusty winds and heavy rainfall across Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands on the 23rd into the 25th. While passing over Hispaniola and eastern Cuba, thunderstorms became better organized with the tropical disturbance. Turning northwest from eastern Cuba on the 26th and 27th, a closed and well defined center finally emerged by late on the 27th and a tropical depression was born. Strengthening ensued, and Tropical Storm Imelda had materialized in the early afternoon of the 28th. Southerly vertical wind shear kept development slow. Imelda moved north until Hurricane Humberto 400 miles to its east weakened the subtropical ridge helping to steer Imelda, leading to a sharp east turn. By the morning of the 30th, Imelda had become a hurricane and the cyclone accelerated east-northeast towards Bermuda on October 1st. A nearby upper level trough began the process of extratropical transition. After passing extremely close to Bermuda on the night of the 1st, Imelda became fully extratropical on the morning of the 2nd while pulling away to the east-northeast. After weakening somewhat, Imelda regained hurricane-force winds late on the 3rd while turning northeast. The cyclone was trackable until early on the morning of the 6th, when another extratropical cyclone absorbed Imelda.
The graphics below show the storm total rainfall for Imelda, which used rain gage information from National Weather Service Forecast Offices/xMACIS2 and CoCoRAHS.
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