Forecasters say the depression is expected to become a hurricane by Tuesday, August 29, and could hit the state as it moves north.
Florida is bracing for a possible hurricane as forecasters warn that a weather system off the coast of Mexico is strengthening as it moves north.
The system developed into Tropical Depression Ten off Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula on Saturday afternoon. It was about 30 miles from Cozumel, with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said on Sunday.
„The depression is expected to become a tropical storm later today and a hurricane by Tuesday,“ the center said in a 4 a.m. advisory.
Forecast models show the storm, to be named Idalia if no other tropical storm forms before it, moving across the Gulf of Mexico towards Florida before making landfall along the Gulf Coast north of Tampa, then traveling diagonally across the state to emerge again in the Atlantic Ocean near southeast Georgia.
