Sandy Upgraded to Hurricane

The 18th named storm of the 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season is now churning at hurricane strength roughly 60 miles south of Jamaica's capital city, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The center of Hurricane Sandy is expected to move near or over Jamaica Wednesday afternoon into the evening and then move on to Cuba. On Thursday it should approach the central Bahamas, forescasters predict.

By the time it passes Cuba's hilly terrain, Sandy will likely be downgraded to a tropical storm, and it is not expected to regenerate into a hurricane, forecasters predict.

Sandy could still bring local impacts to the South Carolina Lowcountry. But forecasters caution that this storm will not bring the sort of conditions Hurricane Irene brought last fall when it made a close brush with the Carolina coast before making landfall in Long Island, NY.

"It's going to be breezy, and the surf will be up, but not much more than that," said Vern Beaver, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston. "The impacts won't be severe."

Sandy should pass South Carolina's coast — staying several hundred miles out — by Friday and into Saturday. Some coastal impacts may be noticed as early as Thursday, forecasters predict.

There will be moderate inland flooding in low-lying coastal areas, and there could be beach erosion associated with Sandy, Beaver said. The largest impact will be the gail-force winds the storm will bring our area.

For folks who live well inland, they may not notice much impact at all, aside from abnormally windy conditions, Beaver said.