Stormy weather for Palm Beach County on July 4 as hurricane center watches area for development
The National Hurricane Center said on June 30 that there was a 20% chance of something tropical or subtropical developing over seven days along the weakening front.
But forecast models have wavered in recent days and where the tropical system could form is unclear, possibly over the warm Gulf Stream waters east of the state, over Florida or in the Gulf of Mexico, now renamed as the Gulf of America by the U.S. government.
'There are still some ensembles showing development but it's less than it was a couple of days ago,' said Chris Fisher, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami. 'But for us in South Florida, it really doesn't make that much of a difference because there will be plenty of moisture and it's looking like a fairly unsettled weekend.'
The NWS has a 30% to 60% chance of rain in South Florida each day through July 3, but that picks up to 70% through the day and evening of July 4 with showers in the morning and thunderstorms possible later in the day.
More: Hurricane Season 2025: How the hurricane forecast cone changed this year
A south to southwest breeze could keep rainfall pinned to the east coast on Friday with the Weather Prediction Center forecasting up to 4 inches of rain for parts of Palm Beach County into Saturday morning. Still, Fisher said July 4th may not be a total washout.
'It's something we're going to have to monitor as the week goes on,' he said.
And while rain could hamper outdoor festivities, Fisher noted that it's sorely needed in Palm Beach County where 20% of the of the county is still in extreme drought and 55% is in moderate drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Palm Beach County is the only area in Florida where there is extreme drought.
Rainfall as measured at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach was 13.4 inches below normal for the year through June 29, making it the 6th driest year in 126 years of records.
July usually is the driest rainy season month for South Florida — just 5.6 inches of rain is normal for West Palm Beach compared to 8.5 inches in June — as Saharan dust plumes increasingly make their way across the Atlantic Ocean to dry out middle portions of the atmosphere.
Alex DaSilva, lead hurricane forecaster for AccuWeather, said a layer of Saharan air combined with cyclone-killing wind shear will keep anything tropical that forms along the stalled front on the weaker side.
More: Lightning injures 8 in Florida, kills one in different events as summer storms roil the state
'I'm thinking it won't blow up into a hurricane or anything massive,' DaSilva said. 'The rain would probably be the primary factor in whatever develops at the current time.'
If a tropical or subtropical storm forms, it would be named Chantal, and would follow the short-lived Tropical Storm Andrea, that formed east of Bermuda on June 24, and Tropical Storm Barry, which was named June 29 but quickly fizzled after making landfall in Mexico as a tropical depression.
Andrea and Barry put this season so far above average as far as the number of named storms. The typical second named storm doesn't form until July 17 with the third named storm forming, on average, on August 3.
'Out in the Atlantic, it looks really quiet,' DaSilva said referring to tropical development in the main runway between Africa and the Caribbean. 'There's a lot of dust, a lot of shear and a lot of cool water off Africa.'
Kimberly Miller is a journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate, weather, and the environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to kmiller@pbpost.com. Help support our local journalism, subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: National Hurricane Center watching area near Florida for tropical development
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