Weather officials track disturbance in the Gulf 2 days before start of hurricane season

The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season officially starts June 1, but the National Hurricane Center is already tracking a disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico.

The area of thunderstorms has a low chance of formation over the next seven days, the NHC in Miami said Tuesday afternoon.

“An area of showers and thunderstorms in the Central Gulf of Mexico is associated with a surface trough interacting with an upper-level trough,” the NHC said on Twitter.

The system is not expected to pose a threat to the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

The Hurricane Center predicts the disturbance to move over the Florida peninsula this weekend and emerge into the Atlantic Ocean early next week.

“Regardless of formation, this will be a source of heavy rain and gusty winds for the Florida peninsula this week,” the NHC said.

This is the second storm system that has been tracked on the NHC’s tropical updates so far in 2023.

Weather officials predict a “near normal” hurricane season this year, bucking a trend of busier-than-usual seasons that have been seen over the last few years.

NOAA predicts five to nine hurricanes this year, with one to four of them being major hurricanes (Category 3 or above).