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WUSF is part of the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network, which provides up-to-the minute weather and news reports during severe weather events on radio, online and on social media for 13 Florida Public Media stations. It’s available on WUSF 89.7 FM, online at WUSFNews.org and through the free Florida Storms app, which provides geotargeted live forecasts, information about evacuation routes and shelters, and live local radio streams.

A New Tropical Depression has Formed over the Northwest Caribbean

potential track map of Tropical Depression 28
Florida Public Radio Emergency Network
Tropical Depression 28 formed in the northwest Caribbean Saturday. It's forecast to strengthen over the Gulf of Mexico and possibly become a hurricane.

The historic 2020 hurricane season continues, as yet another tropical cyclone formed in the northwest Caribbean Saturday. Tropical Depression Twenty...

The historic 2020 hurricane season continues, as yet another tropical cyclone formed in the northwest Caribbean Saturday. Tropical Depression Twenty-Eight (TD28) is forecast to strengthen over the Gulf of Mexico, possibly briefly becoming a hurricane before making yet another landfall across the north-central Gulf Coast next week.

Hurricane hunters found TD28 to be located about 255 miles south-southeast of the western tip of Cuba late Saturday afternoon, where they found a well-defined center of circulation and maximum winds up to 35 mph. A Tropical Storm Watch was issued for the western province of Cuba Pinar del Rio.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center expect TD28 to gradually strengthen into a tropical storm on Sunday as it moves through the Yucatan Channel and into the southern Gulf of Mexico. Thereafter, a faster rate of strengthening is expected Monday or Tuesday and TD28 could briefly become a hurricane before it moves into an environment less favorable for intensification. The interactions of TD28 with an approaching trough of low pressure are likely to result in some weakening prior to landfall Wednesday or Thursday, which is currently forecast to be anywhere between Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle.

TD28 is likely to become the eleventh tropical storm or hurricane to make landfall in the continental United States this year, adding one more to the record set earlier this year when Hurricane Delta came ashore in Louisiana on October 9. While confidence in the projected track and strength of TD28 as it approaches the U.S. Gulf Coast is low at this time, residents in hurricane prone areas from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle are being urged by forecasters to stay informed of future updates as the situation becomes clearer with time.

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Jeff Huffman is Chief Meteorologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville. In addition to his full-time position at the university's radio and television stations, WUFT-FM/TV and WRUF-TV, the latter of which he co-founded, Huffman also provides weather coverage to public radio stations throughout Florida
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