Weather Disturbance Takes Aim At Florida

TAMPA, FL — While Tropical Storm Maria and Hurricane Lee are grabbing headlines as they continue to churn in the Atlantic Ocean, an area of disturbed weather near Cuba is also capturing attention. The National Hurricane Center says the system has a strong potential to impact Florida over the next few days.

By 2 p.m. Thursday, the disturbance under watch extended from the Cayman Islands north across Cuba and into the Florida Straits. The storm is expected to become a weak low-pressure system as it moves north toward Florida’s coast over the next few days. (For more weather or local news from Florida, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Tampa Patch, and click here to find your local Florida Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

“Environmental conditions appear conducive for development before upper-level winds become less favorable early next week,” forecasters wrote in the center’s 2 p.m. Sept. 28 update. The storm has been given a 30 percent chance of forming more over the next 48 hours. Those chances rise to 50 percent over the next five days.

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“Regardless of development, this system is likely to produce locally heavy rainfall over portions of central and western Cuba, the Florida Keys, the Florida peninsula, and the northwestern Bahamas during the next several days,” the center's update said. Many of those areas remain waterlogged thanks to Hurricane Irma’s run across the Sunshine State earlier in the month.

Should the storm develop enough to earn a name, it would be called Nate.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Maria was located well off the eastern seaboard by 2 p.m. Thursday. That storm was moving on a course that is expected to carry it out into the north Atlantic by week’s end. Hurricane Lee was also heading on a course toward the north Atlantic. Although still retaining maximum sustained winds of 100 mph, Lee was expected to downgrade by Friday morning.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 each year. Average seasons produce about 12 named storms, of which six become hurricanes. Three of the hurricanes are generally deemed major. Forecasters call the period between mid-August and mid-October the “season within the season.” This eight-week period “is often the most active and dangerous time for tropical cyclone activity,” according to the NOAA.

Residents readying for the ongoing season can get tips and advice on the federal government’s Ready.gov website.

Graphic courtesy of the National Hurricane Center