Low pressure system set to hammer Florida with severe weather
The first half of this weekend could be a dangerous one for Floridians as a low pressure system from the Gulf of Mexico hits the state with torrential rain and powerful winds.
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00:00 Our top story tonight is taking us to Florida, where flooding rain, coastal dangers, strong
00:05 winds and even tornadoes are all on the table this weekend.
00:08 Earlier this evening, we talked to Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency
00:12 Management, about his biggest concerns.
00:15 One of them, he tells us, is power outages, and residents who end up in the dark may need
00:20 to be patient.
00:22 We don't have 40,000 electrical workers assembled and staged.
00:26 This is not a cat-5 hurricane.
00:28 They will respond to these situations, they will get the power restored as quickly as
00:32 possible, but I think the expectation of what we've had after hurricanes is that's going
00:36 to be in the next 24 to 48 hours.
00:39 It may take us a little bit longer to get that done in this situation.
00:43 That's a good point.
00:44 He compares this to a hurricane, where they have a lot more crews in place.
00:47 But I'll tell you what, if you are in Florida, this next 24 to 48 hours might feel kind of
00:52 like a tropical storm is going through.
00:54 There will be buckets of rain and wind.
00:57 One thing that causes the power outages is the wind.
01:00 Look at the wind gusts that we have seen here across Florida over the last 24 hours.
01:05 These are the peak gusts, between 25 and 45 miles an hour.
01:09 These aren't the winds that we're concerned with, though.
01:12 These have been a persistent onshore flow from the Atlantic coast.
01:16 What we're going to be seeing later on is what's brewing right now in the Gulf of Mexico.
01:20 Let's bring you to the current radar picture and see what's happening out there.
01:24 Right now, we do have some rain off the west coast of Florida and also into the Keys, where
01:29 it's been a little bit heavier.
01:30 And also, we're watching some rain that's getting you soaked in east Texas.
01:34 But in between those areas, you see this lightning out here?
01:38 It's very minor.
01:39 It's just a little bit of lightning.
01:40 There is a storm system brewing out there in the open Gulf of Mexico that's going to
01:44 be moving into the region as we move forward in time.
01:48 I wanted to show you future radar here and see what to expect as we head into daybreak
01:52 on Saturday morning.
01:53 And there's that low pressure system.
01:55 We just saw a little bit of lightning with that.
01:56 It's going to be south of New Orleans at daybreak.
01:59 The rain will already be spilling its way into the west coast of Florida when the sun
02:03 comes up in the morning on Saturday.
02:06 Watch this thing blossom.
02:07 And this is why I'm saying it's going to feel kind of like a tropical system coming through.
02:11 Very impressive low pressure system, lots of wind around it and lots of rain to go along
02:16 with it.
02:17 Heavy moisture content here.
02:18 So we're going to be seeing inches of rain through the day on Saturday.
02:22 Here's five o'clock in the afternoon.
02:23 The center of the low is still well off to the west.
02:26 And at this time, we're going to see a lot of wind shear develop across the southern
02:30 half of the Florida peninsula and severe weather is going to be quite possible for us, including
02:35 tornadoes.
02:36 Watch the low move onshore as we make it into south Georgia into Sunday afternoon, when
02:40 at that point, most of the rain is out of the Sunshine State.
02:44 But these coastal hazards are very dangerous.
02:46 You don't want to be in the surf zone for the next couple of days across Florida, the
02:49 Gulf Coast, the Atlantic Coast, the rough surf, the strong rip currents, not to mention
02:54 coastal flooding at times of high tide.
02:57 And we have coastal flood advisories, watches, warnings for the entire coast of Florida up
03:02 the coast as well.
03:03 And this is just not a good time to be on the boat either.
03:06 Let's talk just about the rain that we're expecting here.
03:08 Yellow is two inches.
03:10 Orange is four inches or more.
03:11 So yeah, we're going to be seeing a lot of rain with embedded thunderstorms.
03:14 This takes us through the upcoming weekend when that storm system is going to be moving
03:18 up the coast eventually.
03:20 And we have to watch out for your Saturday weather.
03:23 There's the low pressure coming into the West Coast of Florida.
03:26 We will have a persistent onshore flow on the Atlantic side tomorrow.
03:29 But as this low pressure system gets closer, there's going to be a lot of wind shear.
03:33 There's going to be a lot of chances for severe weather.
03:36 And this is a look at the severe weather outlook Saturday afternoon into Saturday night.
03:40 The atmosphere is going to be ripe for tornadoes, not to mention intense rain, damaging winds.
03:45 And Orlando is included in this, Tampa, Miami.
03:49 This could be a very dangerous first half of the weekend for us here in Florida.
03:53 And here's your Sunday weather.
03:55 It's going to be a soaking end to the weekend here with low pressure moving through South
03:59 Georgia.
04:00 The wind and the rain move up the coast.
04:02 The gusts will be 40 to 50 miles an hour at the coast, even stronger possibly.
04:06 And speaking of severe thunderstorms, the risk for severe weather is going to move up
04:11 the coast with the low into Sunday.
04:14 Places like Myrtle Beach could see a tornado to finish off the weekend.
04:18 Intense rainfall and localized damaging wind gusts 50 to 60 miles an hour.
04:23 This is going to be a really impressive storm for us here, folks.
04:26 OK, check out the rough waves meantime in Ponce Inlet on Florida's Atlantic coast.
04:31 As we've been talking about, dangerous beach conditions will stick with us into the weekend.