Weather system just east of Florida has 50 percent chance of development, says National Hurricane Center

The 2020 hurricane season doesn’t start until June 1, but officials have already issued their first advisory.

This morning, the National Hurricane Center released an advisory stating that conditions are optimal for a subtropical system to develop this weekend. The low pressure system, which has a 50% chance of formation over the next five days, is located a couple hundred miles northeast of the Bahamas, say forecasters.

And so it begins.

“An area of low pressure is expected to develop this weekend to the northeast of the Bahamas,” the NHC wrote in a tweet. “Environmental conditions appear conducive for this system to acquire some subtropical characteristics as it moves northeastward through Sunday.”

While the system is expected to move northeast and away from Florida, if it does develop into a tropical feature, it would be the first of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season.

Hurricane season is now colliding with the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, Division of Emergency Management Director Jared Moskowitz announced that his agency is redeveloping plans about evacuations and shelters, and adding face masks to the state’s stockpile of storm supplies.

“We’re going to have 10 million masks in reserve by the time the hurricane season starts,” Moskowitz said. “And we signed a long-term deal with Honeywell to help get us 12 million N95 masks over the next year directly from the manufacturing plant, with a significant portion of that being delivered during hurricane season.”

This story originally appeared in our sister paper Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
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