Early in its duration, the system interacted with a ridge over the central United States, which produced strong winds and high tides along the Texas coast.

Moving generally to the east due to a trough, the depression intensified into a tropical storm on October 6, and the next day reached peak winds of 70 mph (110 km/h) while approaching the west coast of Florida.

The extratropical remnants of Josephine moved along the eastern coast of the United States, producing wind gusts as strong as 77 mph (124 km/h) in St. Mary's County and in Ocean City, Maryland.

Heavy rainfall flooded low-lying areas and rivers along the storm's path, including in North Carolina which had previously been affected by hurricanes Bertha and Fran earlier in the year.

In the southeastern United States, the storm contributed to dozens of traffic accidents, which killed a person each in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.

A low pressure area formed in the Bay of Campeche by October 2, although initially upper-level conditions did not favor tropical cyclogenesis.

During its formative stages, the depression interacted with a ridge near the Great Lakes to produce strong winds across the Gulf Coast of the United States.

Josephine accelerated to the northeast while maintaining peak winds, and it made landfall in Taylor County, Florida at 0330 UTC on October 8.

The agency later issued a tropical storm warning for the Atlantic coast from Cape Canaveral to Little River Inlet in South Carolina.

[5] Later, the storm forced the cancellation of part of Bob Dole's bus tour through New York, and postponed a search for the wreck of TWA Flight 800.

[7] While Josephine was forming, it produced high tides of 3 to 4 ft (0.91 to 1.22 m) above normal that flooded coastal regions and eroded beaches along the Texas coast.

[10] Josephine made landfall in northwestern Florida along Apalachee Bay and produced a high storm surge of around 9.3 ft (2.8 m) in Suwannee,[1] causing minor to moderate beach erosion.

[15] High tides flooded barrier islands and caused erosion in beaches, previously affected by hurricanes Bertha and Fran earlier in the year.

[16] After having tracked across the southeastern United States, Josephine emerged into the western Atlantic Ocean as a strong extratropical cyclone and remained near the coast.

[8] In southeastern Virginia, where wind gusts reached 63 mph (101 km/h) at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel, the storm left about 26,000 people without power, while flooding contributed to over 70 traffic accidents.

[15] In neighboring Maryland, the storm produced a peak wind gust of 77 mph (124 km/h) in St. Mary's County and in Ocean City, which knocked down trees onto houses and left about 7,000 people without power.

In the Chesapeake Bay, waves of 6 ft (1.8 m) in height caused minor coastal damage and flooded portions of the coastline, including along Maryland Route 238.

[8] While passing offshore New England, the remnants of Josephine produced gusts as high as 68 mph (109 km/h) at Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory in Massachusetts.

Throughout New England, the high winds downed trees and branches, causing scattered power outages in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.