Rain is about to return to Florida in a bigger way, and it is not waiting for a named storm. A non-tropical low-pressure system is expected to slowly form in the northeastern Gulf tomorrow, bringing heavy rain to the west coast of Florida beginning today and continuing into next week.
For people along the west coast of Florida, that means a wet stretch that could last several days rather than a quick burst of showers. Bryan Norcross said, “We’ll keep an eye on it,” and that is the right posture for a system that is expected to keep the weather unsettled across much of the Florida peninsula while drought conditions still linger in the western part of the peninsula.
The heaviest rain is expected to focus on the west coast first, then spread the chance of thunderstorms across Florida and surrounding areas as the system organizes. Stronger storminess is expected from the northern Gulf Coast across much of the Florida peninsula and possibly to the Georgia and Carolina coast from Sunday to Tuesday, a window that lines up with the period when the low is most likely to drift and deepen.
That low is not expected to behave like a classic tropical cyclone at first. The strong consensus of the computer forecast models is that it stays in the Gulf, pushed west or northwest along or over the Gulf coast by the flow around the heat-dome high to the north. Early next week, it could move over very warm Gulf water and try to become a tropical depression, but the National Hurricane Center still puts those odds in the low category.
That is the friction in this forecast: a system can produce a long run of rain, gusty thunderstorms and rough weather without ever crossing into tropical development. In this case, strong upper winds could stretch the disturbance out and keep it more like a sprawling rainmaker than a tight storm, even as the weather turns unsettled along the coastal South and Florida.
Elsewhere, the tropics are showing more than one sign of activity. The National Weather Service has flagged two areas for possible tropical development, one near West Africa and another along the Gulf Coast, while a disturbance that moved off Africa a couple days ago is being watched as it runs into Saharan dust and hostile upper winds. The broader setup still looks like an El Niño July pattern, which tends to fight development; on average, the second named storm of the season does not form until July 17.
For Florida, the immediate story is not a hurricane threat but a prolonged spell of rain with the best shot at needed moisture in the west. The bigger unanswered question is how much rain falls before the system finally pulls away, and whether the Gulf low can organize at all before the atmosphere shuts it down.
