Tropical Depression Fred has continued its northwestward path to Tampa Bay, but no longer as a tropical storm.
Instead, the mountains of Hispaniola and dry air severely hindered the small storm on Wednesday evening and weakened it to a tropical depression. The National Hurricane Center still predicts, however, that Fred could bring heavy rains and gusty winds to Tampa Bay starting Sunday morning.
Spectrum Bay News 9 Meteorologist Julie Marquez says Fred’s biggest threat to our region will be constant, heavy rainfall that will last through Monday. She has given Sunday an 80 percent chance of rain followed by a 70 percent chance the following day.
“Regardless of how strong Fred will be, we’re expecting a lot of rain,” she said Thursday morning.
Fred had sustained winds of 35 mph at 2 p.m. Thursday and was moving northwest at 14 mph. The storm is expected to move across the southeastern Bahamas and parts of central Cuba on Thursday evening. It’s then expected to reach the Florida Keys and South Florida on Saturday before entering the Gulf of Mexico.
While Fred is battling wind shear, dry air and land interaction, Marquez says there will be a window where Fred could slightly re-strengthen again over open water in the Florida Straits and in the Gulf of Mexico. The National Hurricane Center projects this will happen, forecasting that Fred will have at least the 40 mph winds required to be a tropical storm again by the time it reaches Tampa Bay.
“If it stays over water, it has more potential to get a little bit stronger before it approaches part of the Keys and South Florida on Saturday,” Marquez said.
If Fred avoids land interaction with Cuba and stays in the Florida Straits, Marquez says she expects a tropical storm watch could soon be issued to South Florida as the storm reorganizes. She does not expect the storm to rapidly strengthen into a hurricane.
Regardless of strength, however, Fred is expected to bring heavy, potentially flood-inducing showers to Florida’s west coast. Most areas will have three to five inches of rain, while isolated areas may have up to eight inches of rainfall over the weekend. The wettest day for Tampa Bay will be Sunday.
While weak for a tropical system, Fred has shown it can still cause damage to places where it makes landfall. In the Dominican Republic, which was hit by Fred on Wednesday, more than 300,000 people were without power in the storm’s aftermath.
On the heels of Fred could be the next named storm of the 2021 hurricane season. A tropical wave in the Eastern Atlantic has been given a 70 percent chance of becoming Tropical Storm Grace in the next five days. Its current location — a few a hundred miles southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands — and projected path are almost identical to where Fred was just a week ago. Forecasters predict it will be a tropical storm by the weekend.
![A second disturbance in the Atlantic Ocean is expected to strengthen into a tropical storm this weekend.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"%20viewBox="0%200%201804%201064"/%3E "A second disturbance in the Atlantic Ocean is expected to strengthen into a tropical storm this weekend.")
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A weakened Fred will still bring heavy rain to Tampa Bay this weekend - Tampa Bay Times
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