'Homebrew' Storm Could Develop Along Florida's East Coast This Week

FLORIDA — A tropical weather system is brewing in the Atlantic and threatens to bring gusty winds and heavy rain to states along the East Coast, including Florida, later in the week, weather forecasters said.

A myriad of coastal and marine hazards will be possible with this passing non-tropical low, the National Weather Service office in Jacksonville said Wednesday. The strengthening low passing through the Atlantic waters along Florida and Georgia should result in breezy winds on Thursday and gusty winds on Friday with gusts potentially to 30-40 mph along the coast.

Locally heavy rainfall will be possible along the state's East Coast Thursday into Friday, with coastal impacts in the form of high surf, deadly rip currents, potential tidal
flooding during high tide and beach erosion.

The Atlantic hurricane season continues to be busy, with Hurricane Nigel packing maximum sustained winds of 100 mph with higher gusts, and two other disturbances are being closely watched by the National Hurricane Center in Miami as they churn in the Atlantic Ocean, moving westerly toward the U.S.

The weather system most likely to affect the Sunshine State is a nontropical area of low pressure that has a 30 percent chance of strengthening off Florida's East Coast later this week and could bring heavy rain, high surf and gusty winds to the U.S. East Coast this weekend.

Forecasters have dubbed it a "homebrew" tropical storm because of its development along the Southeast coast, forecasters said it could bring severe weather including heavy rain to the East Coast from Florida to the mid-Atlantic states later this week, causing already-swelling rivers and saturated lands to flood and pose a risk to residents.

"Stalled fronts along the Southeast coast of the United States are one way a 'homebrew' tropical system can form," AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno said.

He said they're likely to produce an area of low pressure along a stalled front toward the end of the week because the Gulf Stream, which is a current that originates in the Caribbean, transports warm water along the East Coast. That warm water is the ingredient needed to produce tropical storms.

But the impact of the low-pressure area could be thwarted by wind shear that could curtail the development of a tropical storm or hurricane.

The NHC said Nigel intensified into a Category 2 hurricane on Tuesday, and is expected to rapidly accelerate Wednesday at it heads northeast and then weaken into a strong post-tropical cyclone on Friday, at worst producing swells and rip currents along Florida's East Coast.

One of the tropical disturbances following Nigel is expected to move off the west coast of Africa Wednesday and has a 70 percent chance of developing into a tropical depression late this week or on the weekend as it moves west across the tropical Atlantic.

As of this morning's NHC advisory, Nigel is 590 miles east-northeast of Bermuda, moving at 16 mph to the north. A turn toward the northeast with an increase in forward speed is expected later Wednesday.

NHC general forecaster Larry Kelly said Nigel has likely reached its peak intensity with hurricane-force winds extending 60 miles and tropical storm-force winds extending up to 160 miles from the center, but will weaken later this week.

If the disturbances develop into tropical storms, the next named storms on the list of storms for the 2023 hurricane season are Ophelia and Phillippe.

"It is possible that even if the center of the storm manages to linger right along the coast, heavy rain and thunderstorms associated with the system will be forced northward along the Carolina and mid-Atlantic coast from Friday to Saturday," Douty said.

If that happens, residents along the East Coast north to New England could experience severe thunderstorms with heavy rains, producing urban and flash flooding, water spouts and tornadoes.

Overall, Hurricane Nigel and the developing storms in the Atlantic won't pose much risk to Florida, said forecasters. However, there are more than two months remaining in the 2023 hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30.

Last year during this period, Florida experienced serious impacts from Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole.

Hurricane Ian made landfall near Punta Gorda as a Category 4 hurricane on Sept. 28, resulting in more than 150 deaths and over $112 billion in damage, making it the costliest hurricane in Florida's history.

Hurricane Nicole made landfall on Nov. 10 at Vero Beach as a Category 1 hurricane, killing five people and causing more than $522 million in property damage.

Hurricane Idalia By The Numbers

In the meantime, Florida continues to recover from Hurricane Idalia, which struck the Big Bend area of Florida as a Category 3 hurricane Aug. 30, killing four people, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The amount of damage from the hurricane is still being assessed, said Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Since the hurricane made landfall, DeSantis said the Florida Department of Transportation deployed 150 crews and 100 Florida Highway Patrol troopers to inspect 100 bridges, clear debris from 1,000 bridges and cleared debris from 25,000 miles of state-owned roads including 10,000 downed trees along a 15-mile stretch of Interstate 10 in Madison County, and Florida National Guard members cleared more than 850 miles of roads.

To date, FDOT crews have picked up over 100,000 cubic yards of debris within two weeks of Hurricane Idalia making landfall and the Department of Environmental Protection activated 71 disaster debris management sites for storing and processing the debris.

More than 400,000 meals, over 300,000 1-liter bottles of water and over 10,000 tarps were distributed to hurricane victims at Points of Distribution.

The Florida Department of Children and Families has established six Family Resource Support Centers in Dixie, Hamilton, Lafayette, Madison, Taylor and Suwannee counties, serving more than 3,300 households.

Surveyors have completed more than 220 on-site post-storm visits to conduct health and life safety surveys in conjunction with the Attorney General’s Fraud Unit.

And the Bureau of Health Facility Regulation made over 2,000 calls to residential health care providers, including hospitals, in the impacted counties.

The Agency for Persons with Disabilities have contacted 6,061 APD clients in the 14 counties declared eligible for Federal Emergency Management Administration Individual Assistance.

State food safety inspectors responded to impacted areas to conduct damage assessments and ensure the safe operation of permitted food establishments. To date, they've completed over 10,000 assessments of food establishments in impacted regions and announced that 10,802 facilities are open for business and 89 are closed.

And Comcast has opened 141,000 public Xfinity WiFi hotspots in areas it serves across Florida in Hurricane Idalia’s potential path for anyone to use, including non-Xfinity customers, for free.