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Tropical Storm Odette forecast to bring dangerous surf along the East Coast

Tropical Storm Odette formed Friday afternoon off the Mid-Atlantic coast of the U.S., the National Hurricane Center said. The storm was not forecast to spin close to any land areas.

But Odette is expected to kick up some dangerous surf along the East Coast over the next couple of days, the hurricane center said.

"Swells generated by Odette are affecting portions of the United States Mid-Atlantic coast and are expected to spread northward to portions of the U.S. Northeast and Atlantic Canada coasts during the weekend," the hurricane center said. "These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions."

Odette, which has sustained winds of 45 mph, was located about 225 miles southeast of Cape May, New Jersey, and was moving to the northeast at 15 mph, forecasters said.

On its current forecast track, the center of Odette will move away from the U.S. Mid-Atlantic coast and pass south of Atlantic Canada over the weekend, the hurricane center predicted.

The forecast path of Tropical Storm Odette shows it moving away from the U.S. East Coast over the next few days.
The forecast path of Tropical Storm Odette shows it moving away from the U.S. East Coast over the next few days.

Odette is the 15th named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season. Only three other hurricane seasons since 1966 (2005, 2011 and 2020) have seen this many storms as of Sept. 17, according to a tweet from Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

In addition to Odette, forecasters were also keeping an eye on two other systems in the Atlantic, neither of which was any immediate threat to any land areas. The one closest to the U.S., which could become a tropical depression over the weekend, was still several hundred miles from the nearest land area in the Caribbean.

Meanwhile, in the southern U.S., the remnants of Hurricane Nicholas, which made landfall in Texas earlier this week, continued to affect portions of the central Gulf Coast, where showers and thunderstorms are forecast to produce locally heavy rainfall over the weekend. Flash flooding impacts, especially in urban areas, are possible across this area, the National Weather Service said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tropical Storm Odette is 15th named storm of Atlantic hurricane season