We continue to watch a tropical wave/broad area of low pressure located over the southeast Bahamas including the Turks and Caicos Islands. Officials wrote in an update that the “upper-level winds are expected to remain unfavorable for significant development for the next day or so”.
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For the next couple of days, as this system tracks toward the northwest, near Cuba, it will continue to struggle to become more organize. However, some of the more reliable models are showing the system entering the eastern Gulf of Mexico as a week system and going into the Florida panhandle by mid-week, Grigsby said. This tropical wave has only a 30% chance for development in the next 2 days. The Bahamas will likely see gusty winds and heavy rainfall, with Florida and the Keys getting the same miserable weather over the weekend. Depending on the continued progress of the wave, several inches of rain could fall in parts of South Florida through early next week.
That’s because it’s not a hurricane or tropical storm, or even a tropical depression at this point.
Wednesday evening, Chris said the storm has a chance to strengthen and become a tropical storm or a hurricane.
The weather service says the average 5-day track forecast error is about 170 miles. A hurricane hunter mission scheduled to investigate it this morning has been cancelled.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Gaston, which weakened from a hurricane earlier Thursday, was out over the Atlantic, about 1,160 miles (1,865 kilometers) east-northeast of the Leeward Islands.
Monday and Tuesday are likely to be the wettest days as the the counter clockwise churn of 99-L pulls up tropical moisture as it moves through the Florida Straits. The storm’s maximum sustained winds were near 50 miles per hour (85 kph).
“Some additional strengthening is forecast in the next 48 hours”, the NHC said. This area of heavy rains is over the northern part of the Gulf but shows no development till this time.
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Hurricane season began June 1 and continues through November 30.
