South Florida may see a run on umbrellas today thanks to a weather system churning off the coast of the Bahamas this morning. But we'll have to wait another week for our first run on hurricane supplies, as forecasters now say the system isn't likely to develop into anything more than an annoying burst of bad weather through Saturday.
A National Weather Service Hurricane Hunter plane had planned to fly into the system this morning to gauge its chances of growing into a named system before slamming into Florida, but that flight has been canceled. Wind shear will keep the storms disorganized, forecasters say.
"Upper-level winds are forecast to become unfavorable for significant development while the low moves slowly westward ... toward southern Florida," the National Hurricane Center says this morning.
That doesn't mean we won't feel the effects from the system. Storms will likely start spinning into South Florida this afternoon and heavy ran will hammer the area through tomorrow evening.
"Regardless of development, this low will bring locally heavy rains to portions of southern Florida and the Florida Keys during the next couple of days," Hurricane Center forecasters say.
Meanwhile, a second system currently well east in the Atlantic looks far more likely to turn into a named storm.
The disturbance, about 750 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands, has a 70 percent chance of turning into a named depression by the end of the day and a 90 percent chance of doing so by tomorrow.
It's still a long way from the U.S., but models at the moment do predict that that storm will veer away to sea before threatening Florida.
"A trough of low pressure expected to push off the U.S. East Coast early next week should induce a more northwesterly track for 91L next week," Dr. Jeff Masters writes at Weather Underground, "and the disturbance does not appear to be a long-range threat to the Lesser Antilles Islands or U.S. East Coast."
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