TAMPA, Fla. Two brewing tropical systems menaced the southeastern United States on Monday, North Carolina’s far eastern coast is in the path of a tropical depression that is strengthening in the Atlantic Ocean and likely to be tropical storm by early Tuesday. The latest forecast, however, calls for it to quickly turn out to sea.A tropical storm watch was in effect on Monday from Cape Lookout to Oregon Inlet along the North Carolina coastline, while forecasters were warning a different tropical storm could make landfall later this week on Florida’s Gulf Coast.The second system, still an unnamed tropical depression early on Monday, was dumping torrential rain on western Cuba as it churned the Gulf of Mexico with gusting winds of 35 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.The system was likely to strength and become a tropical storm later on Monday or overnight, the forecasters said. It could make landfall on Thursday on northern Florida’s Gulf Coast.The hurricane center said the Florida Keys and coastal parts of the southern state could see as much as seven inches (18 cm) of rain, spurring localized flooding.The next two tropical storms of the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season will be named Hermine and Ian.The developing systems come as the season’s first major Atlantic hurricane, Gaston, was expected to remain a powerful storm for several days. On Monday, Gaston was blasting 110-mph winds, posing no threat to land and located about 560 miles east of Bermuda.
