PORTLAND, Maine — Here are the latest details about two tropical systems that will move near the East Coast in the next seven days.
The first system is tropical storm Franklin, just north of Puerto Rico right now, but it will become at least a category 2 hurricane.
The second system doesn’t have a name yet but has a 70 percent chance of development in the next few days for the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
We will turn our eyes to Franklin first as it will track west of Bermuda as a category 2 storm early next week.
The storm will have its source of heat energy cut off as it moves north but will remain a category 1 hurricane east of Cape Cod by Wednesday.
It’s a close call for Maine, but we won’t see any rain or wind from Franklin. I also expect the storm to miss Nova Scotia, unlike Fiona last year.
Rising seas will be the biggest impact along with rip tides next week along Maine beaches due to Franklin churning up a lot of wave action.
Now we can turn our attention to the system not named yet. It will rapidly strengthen in the eastern Gulf of Mexico next week.
A tropical storm or hurricane is projected if all ingredients come together by early next week, with impacts to the Florida Peninsula.
As a matter of fact, flooding will be a serious concern from Fort Myers up to the Big Bend area of Florida early next week if the system develops over the weekend.
I’ll have more updates over the weekend on the tropics.
-Jason Nappi