The National Hurricane Center said a tropical wave located between the Bahamas and Cuba remains disorganized, but may find favorable conditions when it moves through the Florida Straits into the Gulf of Mexico either over the weekend or early next week.
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Regardless of whether a tropical wave lurking offshore actually musters the strength to become a more fierce storm, forecasters say the region is in for a soggy, wet weekend, with possible flooding.
“We’ve raised the numbers because some conditions now in place are indicative of a more active hurricane season, such as El Niño ending, weaker vertical wind shear and weaker trade winds over the central tropical Atlantic, and a stronger west African monsoon”, said Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center. Rain chances are rather low, but not zero, and the chance of any one spot seeing a shower or storm each day is about one in five.
INVEST 99L: The most hyped and over publicized tropical wave in history as it seems like, is not looking healthy today. Packing maximum sustained winds of 65 miles per hour, the storm has weakened somewhat since it was downgraded from a hurricane back to a tropical storm Thursday.
The storm, now about 600 miles southeast of Miami, has already brought tropical storm-force wind gusts between 40 and 50 mph over some of the northern Caribbean islands and surrounding waters.
The latest report from the National Weather Service says there’s a 70 percent chance Invest 99 will develop into a tropical system in the next few days.
“We will adjust accordingly”. The Bahamas will likely see gusty winds and heavy rainfall, with Florida and the Keys getting the same miserable weather over the weekend.
The Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft scheduled to investigate this system this morning has been canceled.
Forecasters also began tracking another disturbance in the northern Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas and Louisiana early Friday.
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The system will bring heavy rains, with the potential to cause flash floods and mud slides, are likely over Hispaniola and eastern and central Cuba during the next couple of days. Early Friday morning, the system continued to weaken as it encountered crippling wind shear.
