RICHMOND, Va. -- A disturbance is located near the Yucatan Peninsula and is drifting northward. It does look like conditions will be favorable for some development as it moves into the Gulf Of Mexico. This is actually something the computer models have been indicating for over a week now.
The National Hurricane Center may have an Air Force reconnaissance aircraft investigate the system on Friday.
This system may become a tropical depression over the next few days. If it strengthens into a tropical storm, it will be named Alberto.
Here is a plot of computer models over the next five days.
Regardless of whether this becomes a tropical depression or storm, it will provide copious amounts of rain to Florida and parts of the Gulf coast.
Some of the moisture may get drawn up into our area, which would provide more fuel to our scattered storms over the holiday weekend.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30, but like this system, some develop outside of that period.
Here is a historical plot of some of the systems that became tropical storms before June 1. The storm highlighted is Ana, which occurred May 6-12, 2015. It formed just off the Palm Beach, Florida coast, tracked northeast over the Atlantic, then curved back to the northwest and made landfall around Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It weakened to a tropical depression, then tracked across southeastern Virginia on May 11 with some rain.
We will continue to provide updates to this potential tropical system on our forecast page. Further details are available in the CBS 6 Hurricane Tracker.
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