Storm forecasters say Floridians, particularly across the Panhandle and Big Bend regions, should pay attention to a system organizing off Mexico’s east coast.
With a 90% chance of forming into a named system, a National Hurricane Center outlook on Tuesday stated that “interests from the Florida Panhandle to Louisiana should closely monitor the progress of this system.”
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“We’ve seen signs of increased development; the satellite shows that,” Mark Wool, the National Weather Service warning coordination meteorologist in Tallahassee, said Tuesday. “So, there’s an expectation that we’ll have a tropical depression sometime today or tomorrow.”
Meanwhile, the meteorological company AccuWeather forecasts the system could become the season’s first hurricane, a Category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale with sustained winds of 74 to 94 mph, before making landfall as a tropical storm this weekend.
If named, the system would be dubbed Isaias.
Regardless of strength, the system is expected to bring gusty winds and areas of heavy rain to the western portions of the Yucatan Peninsula in a couple of days before turning north or northeast toward the northern Gulf Coast by the end of the week.
Wool said large portions of Florida are in play because the unbalanced system is likely to include a big wind field extending to areas east of the center. He also warned of potential flooding, especially in areas of the Panhandle and Big Bend region that have recently experienced nine to 11 inches of rain since the end of last week.
“If we get five, six, seven, eight inches of rain or more from a tropical system, it’s not going to take a lot to cause flooding,” Wool said.
In the AccuWeather forecast, the system faces wind shear that should lower the system's strength back to a tropical storm before making landfall Saturday near the Mississippi-Alabama border. That could still bring rainbands of 4- to 8-inches “across much of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle," the AccuWeather forecast stated.
“Heavy rain and gusty winds will then spread north into the Ohio Valley and into the Carolinas before the storm loses organization early next week,” AccuWeather forecasted. “The storm is already dropping moderate rain across coastal towns along the Bay of Campeche in Mexico.”
Florida hasn't had a hurricane or tropical storm make landfall since the 2024 season.
“It’s been a little bit," Wood said. "People, I fear, may be lulled into a sense of complacency. So we need to make sure you’ve got that supply kit set and ready to go, before the stores go nuts.”