A weather system heading toward Florida has 60% chance of developing into Tropical Storm Chantal
As it travels toward Florida, a disturbance that’s now over the Bahamas has a 60% chance of becoming a full-fledged tropical storm by Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Center’s Monday afternoon update.
A tropical storm is a cyclone — a low-pressure system with organized movement of hot winds circulating around a well-defined core — that has maximum sustained winds ranging from 39 to 73 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Center.
If the disturbance matures, Chantal would be the third named storm of 2019.
Time is an issue here, according to national storm experts.
This low-pressure weather system has just 24 hours or so to ripen into a full-fledged tropical storm. After that, conditions will no longer be favorable for its development, meteorologists say.
The same cold front that has begun to bring relief from the heat on the US East Coast is what could kill this system before it becomes a mighty storm. The front might steer the system, which is moving through the northern Bahamas parallel to the Florida coast, out to sea.
Even if Chantal doesn’t mature, the Southeast United States will see widespread rainfall and thunderstorms on Tuesday as the low-pressure system moves through the region, the National Weather Service predicts.
The area of low pressure was near Andros Island in the Bahamas as of Monday afternoon. Showers and thunderstorms have increased regionally in association with this system. Portions of the northwest Bahamas are expected to experience heavy rainfall and gusty winds through Monday night.
The entire low-pressure system is expected to move northwest about 15 mph Monday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
When first detected on Sunday afternoon, the system had just a 20% chance of maturing into a tropical storm. By Monday afternoon, the risk had tripled.
