Storm Fay reaches west Florida without strengthening

MIAMI, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Fay moved ashore over southwest Florida on Tuesday without strengthening into a hurricane, bringing heavy rains to the south of the peninsula, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

By 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT), the eye of the storm had crossed the shoreline at Cape Romano, around 55 miles (90 km) south of the resort area of Fort Myers, the Miami-based center said.

Its top sustained winds never went over 60 miles per hour (95 km per hour) as it passed over the Florida Keys and menaced south Florida, below the 74 mph (119 kph) threshold at which tropical storms become hurricanes.

The sixth storm of what experts predict will be an unusually busy Atlantic hurricane season, Fay brought gusty conditions and steady downpours to south Florida. The rain was much needed for an area where development over the past decade has outstripped water supplies.

The storm killed more than 50 people in the Caribbean, most of them in Haiti when a crowded bus tried to cross a rain-swollen river and was carried away by the current.

The hurricane center forecast that Fay would track in a northeasterly direction and briefly reemerge over the Atlantic before curving back into the coast of northeast Florida. (Reporting by Michael Christie; editing by Alan Elsner)