Storm system to bring some heavy rain

SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) - Get ready for more widespread rain over the next several days. A trough of low pressure and an increase in tropical moisture will combine to bring showers and thunderstorms through Sunday.

Thursday look for showers and thunderstorms beginning to roll in from the Gulf during the late morning and continue through the evening hours. Now we start off with partly cloudy skies with increasing cloudiness throughout the afternoon. The rain chance is at 40% during the morning and then jumps to 70% during the afternoon and evening. Highs will be in the upper 80′s.

Friday will be disruptive at times as some energy rolls in around a trough of low pressure. The rain chance is at 80%. Some of the storms will bring some heavy rain at times which could cause some localized flooding in some low lying areas. We will have variable cloudiness with some breaks at times. The high temperatures will be a couple of degrees below average. The average high is 90°.

This type of weather will stick around through much of the weekend so keep the umbrellas handy.

In the tropics we could see the first major hurricane of the season develop. Hurricane Earl located to the SE of Bermuda is showing signs of strengthening and is expected to get stronger over the next few days. The National Hurricane Center is suggesting that Earl could get up to a Cat. 4 storm with sustained winds of 140 mph by Saturday. The good news is that it is going to be mainly a “fish” storm, meaning it will have no direct impact on any land area. The core of the strong winds look to stay to the east of Bermuda. Bermuda could still see some tropical storm force winds on the left side of the storm.

The east coast of the U.S. will see some high surf due to the wave action generated by Earl and will cause some dangerous rip currents along the entire east coast of the U.S.

There is another system in the east central Atlantic which looks to become the 6th named storm which would be Fiona. This system looks to be another “fish” storm making a turn to the north central Atlantic. There is another disturbance or tropical wave in the far eastern Atlantic which has a 30% chance of developing over the course of the next 5 days.

For boaters look for generally light winds outside of the storms that will develop in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday. Winds out of the east at 5 knots and then switching around to the SW later in the day. Seas will be less than 2 feet and a light chop on the waters.

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