Disturbance off Florida-Georgia coast: Window for development narrows significantly
It’s looking less and less likely that we’ll see further development from an area of low pressure that has spent the past few days churning off Florida’s east coast.
The disturbance, located just east of southeastern Georgia as of 2 p.m. Monday, is forecast to continue heading west. Once it moves over land, though, any chance for development will be almost nil, the National Hurricane Center said.
Its odds of developing in the next two to five days is 20%, down from 50% on Sunday.
Dry air and wind shear over the Atlantic Ocean had hindered the system’s development over the past few days.
Dry air, which creates conditions contrary to the humid environment conducive to the birth of storms, is common in July and one reason the month sees relatively few storms.
And wind shear is known have a storm-shredding effect.
“While waters are plenty warm enough to support a tropical system east of Florida, wind shear is significant,” said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Rob Miller.
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The system’s steering breezes and wind shear “will tend to bring more moist air in across Florida, as well as southeastern Georgia and coastal South Carolina on Monday and Tuesday, and that will bring an uptick in shower and thunderstorm activity regardless of any tropical development,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski said.
Thunderstorms are in the forecast for South Florida, with 2 to 4 inches of rain possible on Monday alone. Any torrential rain would likely lead to flooding in areas with poor drainage systems, especially along the coast.
A flood watch was in effect for coastal areas in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties through Monday evening.
The rain totals for Tuesday are forecast at up to 1 inch, with the potential for more rain during thunderstorms.
The next named storm to form in the Atlantic would be Fred. On average, though, fifth-named storms usually form in late August, according to AccuWeather.
The name “Fred” was last used in Aug. 2015 for an Atlantic-based tropical storm that developed into a hurricane off Africa’s west coast.
So far in 2021, there have been four tropical storms and one hurricane.
Tropical Storm Ana formed on May 22, prior to the official June 1 start of hurricane season. Then came Tropical Storm Bill on June 14; Tropical Storm Claudette on June 19; and Tropical Storm Danny on June 28.
Hurricane Elsa became the earliest-forming ‘E’ storm in history when it formed July 1. Elsa made landfall as a tropical storm in Florida’s Big Bend region on July 7, two days after making landfall in Cuba.
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The Atlantic basin has quieted since Elsa, due in part to a global climate system causes air to sink over the Atlantic, suppressing the formation of tropical storms or hurricanes.
The tropics typically start generating producing more storms in early August, as patches of disturbed weather roll off the west African coast, with storm formation reaching a peak around Sept. 10 and only falling to pre-peak conditions by late October.
Forecasts vary for the 2021 hurricane season but the experts at Colorado State recently revised their prediction to 20 named storms and nine hurricanes.
Sun Sentinel staff writer Arlene Borenstein-Zuluaga contributed to this report.
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the history of Atlantic-based storms named Fred.
