BLOG: Disturbance forming off South Florida coast

HOUSTON – The National Hurricane Center is monitoring an area of thunderstorms off Florida in the northwest Bahamas for possible development. U.S. Air Force hurricane Hunters are scheduled to fly into the disturbance starting Wednesday. 

The conditions are not currently favorable for the disturbance to become a purely tropical depression or storm. While the water is warm enough to support tropical development, strong wind shear aloft associated with a cold core trough of low pressure will inhibit the development of the warm core around the low, which is needed to be called tropical.

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The system, should it develop, would most likely become a subtropical depression or storm. Subtropical storms have some characteristics of both tropical and wintertime low-pressure systems. They generally form north of the tropics, hence the name subtropical.

May 5 is extremely early for development of either tropical or subtropical systems. Like the one currently being monitoring, they usually develop from the remnants of a strong cold front that reaches the southern Gulf and the northern Caribbean. A storm in May tells us nothing about how many storms will develop during the season.

The system is moving slowly north, and whether or not it becomes subtropical, it will bring a threat of heavy rain to parts of Florida and the southeast U.S.