(Bloomberg) -- One week after Hurricane Helene barreled ashore, Florida is bracing for another round of heavy rainfall and strong winds from a tropical system brewing in the Atlantic.
The potential storm could bring as much a foot of rain to the southern half of the state beginning early next week, according to commercial forecaster AccuWeather Inc. Tampa could see four to eight inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rainfall, and the Big Bend region — where Helene made landfall last week — will likely receive at least one to two inches. That could complicate cleanup operations at a time when Florida is struggling to get the lights back on, with more than 21,000 homes and businesses still in the dark, according to PowerOutage.us.
“It looks like the bulk of the rain will be to the south of the areas that basically took the eyewall of Helene,” said Alex DaSilva, lead hurricane expert for AccuWeather. “That’s a little bit of good news, but the peninsula of Florida from Orlando south could be at risk of some pretty significant flooding next week.”
There is a narrow chance the system could develop into a hurricane as it enters the Gulf of Mexico, DaSilva said. It will encounter plenty of fuel, as sea surface temperatures are well above 80 degrees, “which is usually the magic number we look at as the threshold” for hurricanes to form. But substantial wind shear and dry air over the ocean will likely help keep the storm in check.
Forecasters are closely tracking two other storms in the Atlantic: Hurricane Kirk and potential Hurricane Leslie. Kirk has escalated to a Category 4 storm but is not expected to make landfall before it begins to fall apart next week, according to the US National Hurricane Center. Tropical Storm Leslie is trailing behind, 580 miles (933 kilometers) west-southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands, and will likely reach hurricane strength Friday.
(Updates power outages in second paragraph and storm strength and location in fifth paragraph.)
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