Forecast: Isolated rain today with all eyes on Elsa

Those in Southwest Florida will continue watching Tropical Storm Elsa today as the system impacts the Lesser Antilles through this afternoon.

Our entire area continues to be inside the forecast cone from the National Hurricane Center with any potential local impacts arriving next week, specifically around Tuesday. It’s important to point out a lot of uncertainty still exists with the long-range track and intensity of this storm because of potential land interaction with Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti and Dominican Republic this weekend.

A lot will change over the next 48 hours as we see where in the Caribbean the storm tracks tonight and tomorrow and then how much influence the mountains of the Caribbean impact the system on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

We’ll need to continue to closely monitor this system, and we encourage you to check in with our weekend newscasts on NBC2 on Saturday and Sunday as they’ll have the latest play-by-play on the storm as it moves over the water.

You can read the latest analysis from our team of meteorologists and see the current forecast cone to get caught up on Tropical Storm Elsa here. 

Locally today, our winds are primarily from the west-southwest. This weather pattern (referred to as onshore flow) oftentimes encourages a few showers or storms to develop early in the day and move east-northeastward through morning and early afternoon. 

In the afternoon hours then, typically the widest coverage of rain and storms develops inland to the east of Interstate 75, with areas west of the interstate seeing lower and more isolated rain coverage.  

Temperatures and humidity will be seasonable this afternoon, with daytime highs topping out in the upper 80s to low 90s.  Later tonight mild and muggy air will persist with lows falling into the middle and upper 70s.  

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