It’s hurricane season in Florida, and this year things are getting stormy earlier than usual. Recently we reported on a storm off of the Atlantic Ocean that had the potential to become a hurricane impacting central Orlando. Luckily the storm blew on to the Carolinas without ever forming a rotation. Now there’s another ‘storm-a-brewin’!
Ask any Floridian, and they’ll tell you that, during the summer, as soon as you breathe a sigh of relief about one storm. The latest storm is off of Florida’s Gulf Coast. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is watching the storm closely and has just released an update. Currently, the system is a series of thunderstorms. Whether or not it will become a Tropical Storm remains to be seen.
At 2:00 pm today (May 30, 2023), the NHC reported that “a series of disorganized thunderstorms [are] associated with a surface trough interacting with an upper-level trough.” A trough is essentially a region of low atmospheric pressure acting as an open chain rather than a closed barrier that would make it a low-pressure system. As we saw last week, without a low-pressure system, a thunderstorm is unlikely to form the rotation needed to upgrade its category.
The NHC says as of right now, the storm has only a 20% chance of becoming a Tropical Storm or Hurricane in the next 7 days. 20%, though, is high enough to watch closely as it makes its way toward Florida. The current path of this system is slow-moving (but note that slow-moving does not mean low wind speed). It’s expected to linger on Mexico’s coast for a few days before heading to Florida. Its current path will send the storm right through Central Florida before it heads back out to the Atlantic Ocean, where it could once again gain strength. If that happens, Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort in South Carolina may also be at risk just as it did during Hurricane Ian.
As always, stay tuned right here. We will watch the storm closely and keep you up to date with any changes. You can count on Disney Dining for the most current information.