BREAKING OFFICIAL: TROPICAL STORM BONNIE HEADED TO GULF

Miami, Florida (CNN) -- A weather system moving over the southern Bahamas has been upgraded to a tropical storm, with sustained winds now reported at 40 miles an hour, as it heads toward the southern tip of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.

The system, formerly a tropical depression, has been named Tropical Storm Bonnie. At 6:15 p.m. ET, it was moving northwest at 14 miles an hour, according to the National Hurricane Center.

It could pick up strength as it moves over the long stretch of open water in the Gulf of Mexico, but the latest computer models do not show it becoming a hurricane, according to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers.

Forecasters had predicted that it would cross over central Florida, but the models now show it passing farther south, over the Florida Keys or the Straits of Florida and then into the Gulf.

The storm is expected to pass the southern tip of Florida on Friday afternoon and then make landfall Sunday between New Orleans and the Beaumont-Port Arthur area in southeastern Texas. Myers said it's more likely to bear down on Louisiana. And on that path, it could push oil in the Gulf from the BP oil spill to shore.

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