Florida first up to be impacted by 2022 hurricane season

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The National Hurricane Center is issuing advisories for Potential Tropical Cyclone 1.

A named tropical storm shortly (next 24 hours).

This system is an early season storm and will only slowly increase in strength.

The NHC is forecasting this system to become Tropical Storm Alex by lunchtime Friday. The expected track is exactly what we have been talking about live on-air — a track across South Florida, near Lake Okeechobee and then into the Atlantic.

This track will keep much of the heavy rains and impact away from Jacksonville.

Central and Southern Florida may see up to 8 inches of rain in some neighborhoods and heavy squalls of rain roll through late Friday and Saturday.

Alex will be a heavily sheared system with much of the worst weather far away from the center of the storm. Therefore, when tracking the storm, don’t look to the center of the storm to note where the worst of the bad weather is located.

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TRACKING THE TROPICS: Interactive map | Latest from NHC

Here’s the 10 a.m. advisory:

At 10am CDT, the disturbance was centered near latitude 22.3 north, longitude 86.8 west. The system is moving toward the northeast near 5 mph (7 km/h), and this general motion is expected to continue with an increase in forward speed starting later today.  On the forecast track, the system should move across the southeastern gulf of Mexico through tonight, across the southern and central portions of the Florida peninsula on Saturday, and then over the southwestern Atlantic north of the northwestern Bahamas Saturday afternoon through Sunday.

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Maximum sustained winds are near 40 mph (65 km/h) with higher gusts. The system is expected to develop a well-defined center and become a tropical storm later today, and some slight strengthening is possible while it approaches Florida today and tonight.  Additional strengthening is possible after the system moves east of Florida over the western Atlantic late Saturday and Sunday.

* formation chance through 48 hours…high…90 percent.

* formation chance through 5 days…high…90 percent.

Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 70 miles (110 km) from the center.

The estimated minimum central pressure based on hurricane hunter aircraft data is 1002 mb (29.59 inches).