Will the potential tropical storm affect Florida?
Models continue to bring a Saturday landfall near Texas and Louisiana. Florida may see increased rain chances early next week, but it's still too early to know. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) says Invest 92-L, the disturbance it has been tracking this week in the Bay of Campeche, is now likely to develop into a tropical cyclone with the next 48 hours. On Wednesday morning, the NHC gave the tropical disturbance a 70-percent chance of development within 48 hours and a 90-percent chance within the next five days. Invest 92-L has been meandering around the Bay of Campeche the last several days. Interaction with land is keeping the storm from organizing so far, but it should start moving north by tomorrow followed by tropical depression/storm development within 48 hours. pic.twitter.com/IA03rONDbp  Ric Kearbey (@RicKearbeyWTSP) June 16, 2021  The disorganized area of showers and thunderstorms over the Bay of Campeche has moved very little over the past week. It's not expected start to make a northern move until sometime Thursday. As it pulls away from land in that area, it will have a much better chance to develop into the expected tropical depression and/or storm. If Invest 92-L becomes a tropical storm, it will be named Claudette. The graphic above is one of the popular American forecast models, called the GFS (Global Forecast System). This model has consistently been predicting a tropical depression or tropical storm will develop in the Gulf of Mexico late this week and make landfall early Saturday near Texas and Louisiana. The graphic below is the European forecast model which has shown similar development and tracking. When trustworthy models agree with each model update, meteorologists call it "model consensus." This increases the confidence in a given forecast. It's still too early to know precisely where the disturbance will go and what it will look like when it reaches the Gulf Coast. However, confidence is growing that heavy rainfall will fall over the northern Gulf Coast. Louisiana is expected to see the heaviest rain, where about 6-10 inches of rain may fall. Some areas may see more. Tropical storm winds may also develop, which may bring some areas of storm surge. Their heavy rain could begin Friday. At least through Saturday, very few impacts are expected to be felt in Florida. The daily sea breeze pattern will continue producing showers and thunderstorms. However, depending on the eventual track of the tropical cyclone, Florida, including the Tampa Bay area, may see increased rain chances by the late weekend or early next week. Any increased rain chances in Florida due to the tropical cyclone will require it to track farther south after it makes an eventual northeast turn. Model consensus isn't there yet for that part of the forecast. So for now, Florida will have to wait and see how the storm develops and eventually tracks.