The ABC7 Hurricane Tracking Team is monitoring a disturbance in the eastern side of the Atlantic that has a chance to develop into a tropical depression as it nears the Caribbean later this week.
The National Hurricane Center has given the system a medium chance for tropical development over the next seven days. If the system were to become a tropical storm, it would take the name Debby.
The disturbance remains weak and disorganized as of this morning, mainly thanks to an area of dry Saharan air surrounding it. High pressure in the central Atlantic will keep the system on a west-northwesterly course over the next couple of days. This will bring it close to or over the Greater Antilles by Thursday and Friday. Deep tropical moisture will envelop the disturbance at this point, giving it a chance to become a tropical depression over the warm waters near the Bahamas.
From there, the strength of the aforementioned high-pressure area in the central Atlantic will determine whether the storm heads toward Florida and the Gulf of Mexico or turns northward over the Bahamas toward the U.S. east coast.
Those models that show the storm developing into a tropical depression or tropical storm tend to favor the northern track, keeping the storm east of Florida. Still, the system would likely throw deep tropical moisture our way, bringing Southwest Florida a stormy Sunday.
There remains some model support for a more southern track. In this case, we would likely be looking at a very disorganized system that fails to become a tropical depression. In this case, it would still push deep tropical moisture into the area and bring widespread storms to Southwest Florida Sunday into Monday.
The rainfall from this tropical disturbance, combined with the daily thunderstorms we see in the lead-up to it, could really pile up over the next week. The NWS shows 4-7 inches of rain falling over much of the area over the next seven days. As those rain totals begin to rise, so too will the threat of flooding across Southwest Florida.
We'll be tracking this system closely as it nears the area, so stick with ABC7 for the latest.