08/20 – Brantly’s “Watching the Tropics” Thursday Forecast

Mostly cloudy skies today with showers and thunderstorms expected late this afternoon through the evening. Rain chances are up to around 60 percent. High temperatures should be a little bit cooler today with the extra cloud cover, only topping out in the upper 80s. Tomorrow, similar temperatures but rain chances drop to around 40 percent.

In the tropics, we are now tracking Tropical Depression 13 and Tropical Depression 14, both of which are forecast to enter the Gulf by early next week.

Tropical Depression 13 will likely be upgraded to a tropical storm later today and move westward toward the Bahamas and then the Florida Peninsula. The National Hurricane Center’s latest cone shows this system moving into the eastern Gulf as a hurricane by Tuesday.

Tropical Depression 14 will move toward the Yucatan Peninsula over the weekend and into the western Gulf by early next week. It is expected to gradually strengthen into a tropical storm over the next 2-3 days.

All residents on the Gulf Coast and East Coast should watch these two systems closely. The forecasts will likely change over the next 5-7 days, so check back for updates.