New Watches, Warnings Issued As Florida Braces For Tropical Storm

Update so we've got some updates and some changes for you and this information is just pouring in right now so we're kind of going through some of this together uh first of all it's still a tropical depression but our winds have picked up just a little bit with maximum sustained winds now 35 miles hour as opposed to 30 miles per hour the center of the circulation now right there smack dab over Central Cuba and a lot of the reason for that intensification is this recent blow up of thunderstorms especially on the south side the center and we are seeing some more signs of organization as a result of that now I want to mention there have been some changes uh to the hurricane watches and storm surge warnings have been updated too so hurricane watch now in effect for the Florida coast west of the illa River to Indian Path so that's been extended I think a little further to the north some of the storm surge watches have now been upgraded to storm surge warning so we're working on getting that out depicted graphically so you can get a visual on Track that but I just wanted to get that information out right away as that became available now we also have an updated track and that hasn't changed a little uh or hasn't changed very much but the one thing I did notice is right in here so we've been talking about this big bulb or the big circle where the Slowdown down the line um is expected to happen they have kind of brought that to occur a little bit sooner after making landfall so if that lingers a little bit longer down here as opposed to up here um that could be an interesting development and instead of just Georgia and the Carolina is more in the flood risk that could put more of North Florida into play so our greatest amount of confidence remains in the 24 to 48 hour time period and that's right when we're expecting this to intensify and reach landfall so here you can see the forecast conditions likely to become a tropical storm later today or tonight Forecast most likely maybe this evening it could happen um by tomorrow evening this is going to be just to the west of Tampa maybe a little stronger at 60 m per hours and then landfall perhaps overnight Sunday into Monday morning official forecast still keeps it a tropical storm at 70 miles per hour but with the hurricane watches in effect that tells me that the National Hurricane Center is thinking what we're thinking and we certainly couldn't rule out a category 1 hurricane um at this point so all the impacts are going to be coming in that hasn't changed we will have wind impacts and the models showing that maybe a category one a few of the models are doing that but there's not a lot of difference between a strong tropical storm and a cat one there's that big blow up of thunderstorms on the south side of that circulation and that circulation is somewhere right in here it's actually very close to Havana but look at the bands already working their way in South Florida and into the keys that will become a little bit more prevalent throughout today so Jordan those winds are going to gust as especially with the storms and a few tropical tornadoes are going to be possible I think those chances will increase just a little bit