BREAKING NEWS: The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has begun posting advisories on Potential Tropical Cyclone Nine, which will likely become Tropical Storm Helene later today or tonight.
Big Picture: Tropical Storm Helene will likely form in the NW Caribbean later today or tonight, then strengthen to a hurricane as it approaches an area from the Florida Panhandle through West Central Florida on Thursday. Helene could intensify to a category 2 or 3 hurricane that will likely produce a large wind field, and inflict wind, storm surge and rainfall impacts to a broad area of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.
In Detail:
1. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasts an area of disorganized thunderstorms to become better organized and form a center of circulation in the NW Caribbean Sea later today or tonight. The storm would likely be named Helene, and is forecast to track through the Yucatan Channel, then become a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.
2. The general thinking in the models is that this storm would track to the north, then possibly northeast, with a broad area, from the Florida Panhandle to the West Central Florida Coast, in the crosshairs.
3. This storm is forecast to intensify quite rapidly, with the NHC best-track forecast predicting max winds to reach 110 mph in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. This would place it near the threshold between cat 2 and cat 3 wind speeds.