Hurricane forecasters keeping watch on disturbance south of Cuba | Miami Herald

National Hurricane Center forecasters are keeping watch on a disturbance near Cuba that has the potential to become a tropical depression or storm as it heads north toward hurricane-weary Florida.

Thursday, forecasters gave the system a 30 percent chance of forming over the next two days; 50 percent over the next five days.

The disturbance is expected to organize into a low pressure area is it moves north over central and western Cuba, toward Florida’s mainland and up the state’s Atlantic coast in the next three days. It will encounter favorable conditions, increasing the likelihood of a tropical cyclone, forecasters said.

Conditions will become less favorable by early-to-middle of next week, according to David Zelinski, a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center.

Even if no depression or storm develops, forecasters said they expect the disturbance to generate heavy rain across Florida and the Keys, portions of central and western Cuba, and parts of the Bahamas.