Tropical Storm Isaias is emerging north of Hispaniola this evening. The circulation has fared pretty well despite the land interaction, and slow strengthening is expected as it moves northwest into the Bahamas. The official forecast from the National Hurricane Center has Isaías becoming a hurricane by late Friday night.

Models trends this afternoon have leaned toward a stronger storm. Stronger systems tend to be more influenced by steering flows in the mid-upper levels of the atmosphere.

For this reason, given the current setup with a trough in the Eastern U.S., confidence is increasing in a track near or just east of Florida – a scenario which largely keeps the worst impacts offshore.

Hurricane conditions are expected across the Bahamas this weekend, and it will be a very close call for Florida’s east coast late Saturday into Sunday. Early next week the focus will shift the Southeast U.S. coastline, with direct impacts a possibility in the Carolinas. We’ll keep you updated over the next few days.

Isaias was officially named late Wednesday evening, becoming the earliest ‘I’ named storm on record (beating Irene on August 7, 2005).

The storm is moving over the Dominican Republic today. We’ll see how that land interaction affects the storm, and what kind of shape it’s in when it moves back over the water.

The track is far from locked in, but the options are narrowing. A weaker storm is more likely to take a track a little further west over the state of Florida. A stronger storm would be influenced more by the trough over the eastern U.S. and turn north sooner, keeping majority of impacts offshore. Recent model runs have been hinting at the latter.

Things will become clearer over the next 24 hours. Those in Florida, and up the Southeast coast still need to be keeping an eye on the progress of Isaias.