Karen is heading into a loop, but could dissolve by the time it turns toward Florida
By Alex Harris and
Michelle Marchante
Tropical Storm Karen is heading into a clockwise loop a few hundred miles south of Bermuda, but it might not survive the turn.
As of Friday’s 5 a.m. update from the National Hurricane Center, the storm was “holding on to tropical storm status for now” and forecasters expect it to dissolve into a remnant low on Saturday as it begins to point west toward Florida and the Bahamas.
Karen’s maximum sustained winds is holding steady at 40 mph and slowed down to 8 mph northern speed as of the evening update, a pace expected to keep dropping over the next few days as Karen bumps into a central Atlantic high and turns right. By Friday night, forecasters said, the storm could be “nearly stationary.”
“The low is expected to plow into strong southwesterly shear on days 4 and 5 while it moves westward over the southwestern Atlantic, which should keep it as a remnant low or possibly cause it to open up into a trough of low pressure,” forecasters wrote.
By Monday, the hurricane center predicted, Karen could have maximum winds of 30 mph.
The National Weather Service said Florida could see high chances of rip currents Monday and Tuesday. This weekend is also one of the highest King Tides of the season, so flooding is expected in low-lying communities.
This story was originally published September 26, 2019 at 11:03 AM.
Michelle Marchante covers the pulse of healthcare in South Florida and also the City of Coral Gables. Before that, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, crime, education, entertainment and other topics in South Florida for the Herald as a breaking news reporter. She recently won first place in the health reporting category in the 2025 Sunshine State Awards for her coverage of Steward Health’s bankruptcy. An investigative series about the abrupt closure of a Miami heart transplant program led Michelle and her colleagues to be recognized as finalists in two 2024 Florida Sunshine State Award categories. She also won second place in the 73rd annual Green Eyeshade Awards for her consumer-focused healthcare stories and was part of the team of reporters who won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the Miami Herald’s breaking news coverage of the Surfside building collapse. Michelle graduated with honors from Florida International University and was a 2025 National Press Foundation Covering Workplace Mental Health fellow and a 2020-2021 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism fellow. Support my work with a digital subscription
Alex Harris is the lead climate change reporter for the Miami Herald’s climate team, which covers how South Florida communities are adapting to the warming world. Her beat also includes environmental issues and hurricanes. She attended the University of Florida.
