Meteorologist James Hopkins is tracking the tropics

[00:00:00]Bay Meteorologist James Hopkins here with your weather update. And even though our weather impact alert is over, we've got some news from the latest forecast model runs. And there's a few spots out there still dealing with a few showers. I know we have some going on the station right now, but we have now tropical storm Bertha, our second named storm of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season. And just a few days after the normal time that we see our second name storm, July 17th is typically about the time frame we see our second name storm of the season. And again, this kind of lines up because this that is really when this started uh uh we started looking for this one. 40 mph winds, central pressure is at 1,04 millibars still moving to the west northwest at about 3 miles an hour. So again, it's slowly walking its way away from us. You can put that into motion there. and see that. So there is your latest and again second tropical storm of the season. So again dealing with a little bit shower activity and you can see not a lot what we have going on on the station right now. As you can see this is us right here uh just two miles to the west of the Gandandy Bridge. So that is what we're dealing with right now. That is moving its way up towards the north. You see one moved its way out of Fish Hawk towards Plant City. So this line here, if you put this into motion again, just moving its way basically from south to north, that's what these have been doing for the better part of the last four days. Now, what we're looking at is I'll pause this and you can see this line. Now, the forecast model, our graph model, I think it was a little fast on this line. It showed this line moving in between five and six.

[00:01:42]This line is still probably another 30, 45 minutes away. And again, put this one into motion and you'll see kind of what we're looking for. So again, another little line. Not expecting any severe weather out of this, but after that one passes, you can see how things kind of calm down. So back behind that, it's going to be relatively calm for the rest of the evening. So again, not expecting any severe weather, just a little bit more rain moving its way through. And I'm going to show you some numbers because this was definitely a very impressive uh weekend at least in terms of rain. Again, we talk about this all the time. We need a nice little tropical system off the coast to bring us some good drought busting rain and some areas definitely got that. So again, tropical storm Bertha. Let's take a look at the forecast. And here's your model runs, individual model runs with this. And uh there's still pretty good grouping moving their way towards the northwest kind of west northwest like it's doing now and then making that turn to the west. So you can see there that turn to the west will be kind of throughout the day tomorrow kind of hugging the northern Gulf Coast before moving its way towards Texas. So again pretty good grouping there of the forecast model runs. And again, even though now this is tropical storm burther, we expected this actually expected it a little bit earlier than that, but it has been battling some wind shear, a little bit of dry air, but it's mostly been the wind shear that has been keeping this one relatively weak and it'll continue to battle some more.

[00:03:15]Actually, windshare is going to be going up. Right now, it's moderate northeast wind shear. So, here's your official forecast. This is from the National Hurricane Center Tropical Storm Watch.

[00:03:26]you see from uh basically stretching from the Big Bend to New Orleans.

[00:03:31]Tropical storm warning is offshore.

[00:03:34]But again, put this into motion and what you'll see is this strengthening a little bit more as we go throughout the day tomorrow. But look at this. So it's 40 now, 45 by 100 p.m. By 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday, 50. But look throughout the day on Wednesday, it starts to weaken again back down to about 45. Moves its way towards the west. So again, there's a couple of things. Number one, again, and I'll show you some of the wind shear. It's going to be battling, but also you can see where it starts to weaken. It's going to be really that land interaction. It's going to kind of hug the northern Gulf Coast.

[00:04:08]And this is because we have an area of high pressure that's up here that's sliding its way to the east. That's going to help give Bertha a push to the west. Then it's going to move its way into Texas, remnant low by the time we get to Saturday afternoon.

[00:04:22]So again, this this doesn't change the forecast. We kind of mentioned this before. We were expecting this one to be a tropical storm. Um not not expecting it to be any stronger than that.

[00:04:31]Yesterday, some of the model runs were taking it to a pretty strong tropical storm. Actually had one take it to a hurricane. We've had four runs since then, and each one of those keep taking it down just a little bit. And now it doesn't even look like it's going to be a strong tropical storm. Again, it was showing some of the forecast model runs and even the official run for the National Hurricane Center was showing 60 mph winds. Now, I think it's going to peak at about 50. So, again, all that's good news. So, there's the wind shear.

[00:04:59]Again, dealing with a little bit. You can kind of see the arrows here, some moderate. So, not a lot, but you see some of that wind shear that it's been dealing with.

[00:05:08]And your forecast for the wind shear is for, of course, it to deal with a little bit more.

[00:05:14]There it is increasing really as we go again throughout the day tomorrow. There's some of that wind shear and there is the land interaction.

[00:05:22]So both of those combined should keep it from strengthening up too much and again that interaction with land is making that turn. That's going to help weaken it to what's going to be a depression as we go throughout Wednesday into Thursday. So that's good news there. So again, I showed you the cone. Now, the European model is has not strayed too much over the course of I would say probably the past five days. So there it is pushing its way into Pensacola as we go throughout the day on Wednesday. So just like the official, it shows it weakening as we go well strengthening into early Wednesday morning, Wednesday afternoon weakening. And one of the reasons for that is again there's your European model taking it right over land and basically gone by the time we go into Thursday. So here's your winds.

[00:06:12]Pretty easy to see. There it is around Pensacola as we go overnight Tuesday, early morning on Wednesday pushing its way onshore. And so for us really with your forecast and even with this European model as we go throughout your evening and overnight, you see it just brings us a little bit of rain for the first part of tomorrow. Then we really start to dry up. I mean, look at tomorrow evening and then same thing for Wednesday, Thursday, not much. So we're going to see the potential for a few showers.

[00:06:47]That's going to be for your morning commute tomorrow. The afternoon is going to be looking a little bit dry. And I'm going to show you um the high resolution forecast coming up. But again, just look at your rainfall forecast over the next couple of days. Again, this is why I'm saying it doesn't really change our forecast any because look at the rainfall forecast. It's still looking at a tenth to a quarter of an inch widespread. So, most of the heavy rain is gone. And again, I'm going to show you some of these numbers coming up.

[00:07:10]They look pretty good with good drought busting numbers for some of these areas.

[00:07:15]Again, here's your GFS doing a lot of the same, but look at it.

[00:07:20]make that curve and then really it's going to be in southeastern uh Louisiana where it makes landfall, pushes its way up and then moves its way into Texas. So that's the difference with a couple of other the I showed you the spaghetti model. So some of them have that same track, keep it right on the coast, keep it going out to the west. That's why again most of them show it doing that and that's why the official cone takes it all the way into Texas. So, here's your wind forecast for the GFS. And as you can see, it stays offshore a lot of the time, but again, it's going to have interaction with land probably at any point in time here on throughout the day on Wednesday. There's your Wednesday afternoon through early Thursday, at least 50% of that storm is going to be overland. So, again, that'll continue to help it weaken a little bit more and then move its way into Texas.

[00:08:14]So, I'm not again with these forecast models, the it's a pretty good consensus that this is the path that it's going to make. We'll just see if the European pushes it a little bit further inland.

[00:08:26]And again, your forecasted rainfall for the GFS, if we go all the way out to late on Wednesday. So again, the next two days, still looking at the same thing, a tenth to about a quarter of an inch. Here's your high resolution graph model.

[00:08:40]And this one's been kind of going back and forth. It it pretty closely follows the GFS with some with the landfall there south of New Orleans. Again, there's the same thing as we go throughout early on Wednesday morning.

[00:08:53]About half of it, 3/4 of it over land, back out over some water very briefly, but by then is back down to a depression and again going to be dealing with some wind shear. So, the graph and the GFS pretty much mirror images of each other.

[00:09:09]And so again, our forecast is for us to gradually dry out. Watch it just move away from us, makes that jog back up to the northwest, then it starts that push off to the west. It stays offshore.

[00:09:21]There it is. Looks like possibly making landfall there in southern Louisiana before moving its way towards Texas. So here is your forecast. This is the uh high resolution futurecast. And again, I think this is be actually a little too quick because it showed that line that I just showed you offshore pushing on between five and six and then starting to break up about 7. Hasn't pushed in yet. So, I think where you see this Monday where it says 8:00 p.m., this is going to be today, I would say probably about maybe 10 p.m. So, again, it's not that far off. Still showing overnight relatively calm. I showed you that on the radar. There's not a lot going on.

[00:10:00]Here's your better chance of rain. And this is going to be for tomorrow morning. There it is. And again, it's not going to be widespread. It's going to be the same thing we have seen for the last four days. And I think this is going to more mimic maybe what we saw on Saturday cuz Saturday was actually relatively dry. The storms were very isolated. And then again, you see things in the afternoon, a few storms inland, which again is typical for the rainy season, and then we'll continue to dry out over the course of the next couple days. high resolution graph forecast rainfall model over the course of the next couple of days is again kind of doing the same thing as you can see very hit or miss. So not a lot of activity going on there and uh so again your weather impact alert is over. So we're still going to continue to track the tropical storm there but not expecting too much to come out of that for at least our area as we go throughout the next about uh I would say two to three days. So, we're going to take a quick break. Whenever we come back, we're going to look at your extended forecast.

[00:10:59]So, stick around.

[00:13:06]Welcome back. Something that we typically don't deal with this time of year is some cold fronts. We had another cold front drop its way down out of Canada over the weekend, pushing its way down to the south. And you can see that here on your satellite radar. It has stalled uh right over North Carolina.

[00:13:19]You see Raleigh there dealing with some of that thunderstorm activity. And right now things are looking pretty good for Ohio, West Virginia, up into Pennsylvania. But that cold front did move through Maryland and over the weekend it caused significant damage in parts of Maryland. Uh reporter Casey Baylor shows what neighbors in Pasadena are dealing with thanks to this front.

[00:13:40]Check it out.

[00:13:43]>> It was terrifying. I mean terrifying >> hearing strong winds across Pasadena.

[00:13:48]>> More of a twisting than than high winds really.

[00:13:50]>> I saw the neighbors chairs. They have little white plastic chairs came flying by and I went uhoh. Rachel Buckland says moments later the rain fell, making it hard to see outside. Buckland says she and her husband took cover in the bathroom and then she heard a loud noise, >> a whoosh, and um you could hear the trees cracking.

[00:14:09]>> Branches and tree limbs snapped and fell all over her front lawn on Bar Harbor Road, nearly missing her home, but damaging cars. It even brought down power lines in the neighborhood. or there was this big orange like burst of color and then the power went out.

[00:14:25]>> Down the street by Riviera Plaza on Fort Smallwood Road, you'll find a pole split in half, damaged wires, and multiple road closures. And county fire officials say the Riviera Beach and Pasadena areas saw significant damage due to this weather event. Resident Robera Stewart says this storm felt different than others. Like I heard the the rain coming sideways at my window and it seemed like it kept coming and kept coming and kept coming.

[00:14:54]>> Now they all wait for power to be restored during this time. They're checking in on other neighbors, making sure everyone is safe.

[00:15:02]>> Real tight net down here.

[00:15:05]>> Yeah, definitely dealing with some of that bad weather there. And one of the things we have been talking about for this entire year since of course January is our drought conditions. And out west, they've had some pretty bad drought conditions as well, especially as we go through places like Colorado, Utah. Now, check this out. Again, this is uh some flash flooding. It swept through parts of Utah on Sunday. This was this sent a wall of mud through the city of Beaver.

[00:15:31]Uh this is kind of where I 70 and I-15 come down. If you're heading south, heading towards Las Vegas there. That's where it's in the southern part of the state. This is new video showing the aftermath. Multiple families were forced to evacuate their homes and just look at all that mud. Now, there's been a lot of wildfires out there and that's of course what happens whenever you get some heavy rain on parts that have been really damaged by the wildfires. So, it is uh it's w it's a a lot of damage there that's going to be cleaned up. Trying to get all that mud cleaned out of there.

[00:16:05]So it is just it's crazy to watch to go from bad wildfire to worse, which is this. So we got a lot we got a lot going on across the country. We have uh you know from wildfires to floods and more than 58 million Americans are under alerts. The heat wave scorches the west.

[00:16:24]The heat is also fueling fires and firing up thunderstorms. CBS's Carter Evans is in Los Angeles with more. Check this out.

[00:16:33]Progress tonight on the Summit Fire, which has burned nearly 3,000 acres outside Los Angeles. Just a few miles west, firefighters made quick work on a fast-moving blaze that came dangerously close to homes. While in Loyaltton, California, >> the fire off Highway 70, >> a helicopter crew mapped out another fire from above.

[00:16:52]>> It's all open line.

[00:16:54]>> And in Colorado, where the Aspenacres fire burned hundreds of homes, US Senator John Hickinlooper tooured the damage. We definitely need more funding.

[00:17:02]There have been huge cuts to the to the fire service. There have been cuts to BLM. There have been cuts everywhere.

[00:17:08]>> Fueling those fire concerns is extreme heat now bearing down on millions.

[00:17:12]>> The wind ain't blowing. You're trying You're trying to pour water on yourself or whatever you could do. It It is hot out there.

[00:17:18]>> Further east, too much water is a concern. In New Orleans, thunderstorms dump several inches of rain, forcing families to wade through kneeh high water.

[00:17:27]>> Come on, y'all. Keep up. And communities in Philadelphia are cleaning up after powerful micro bursts rip through neighborhoods with wind gusts up to 70 mph.

[00:17:37]>> Heard a giant boom and I'm like, did we get hit by lightning? And then I looked out the front door and saw the roof was on top of my vehicle.

[00:17:44]>> So it's really from one extreme to the other. About 40% of the country is experiencing drought conditions right now. Carter Evans, CBS News, Los Angeles.

[00:17:55]again. And the good news for us is we're finally getting some of that drought busting rain. Take a live look around and not looking too bad. The one in the top center, that is St. Petersburg looking over the trough that is looking off towards the west. Seeing a little bit of sunshine break through before it goes down. Same thing there for that Clearwater Beach camera. That one's looking pretty nice. So, not too bad at all with that. And St. Pete looking off in the other direction. This is the St. Petersburg camera out overlooking the bay over towards the west. You're still seeing some dark clouds and again some shower activity moving through. So currently our temperatures we're in the 70s and 80s across much of the area and uh it's of course going to be muggy as we go throughout your day. 78 for Riverview. Lakewood Ranch just had some showers move through there. Most of the rest of us are in the 80s and we'll probably cool down to around 80 through the overnight. So, here's your satellite radar, and this is what we have been dealing with over this is a 24-hour loop. So, as you can see, there's no big This does not look like Friday. Friday, we had huge batches of rain, thunderstorms, heavy downpours moving across, and you can see some of the areas. And again, a lot of the higher numbers are here along the coast. So, I want to show you something that's interesting because we've talked about the drought conditions that we have across the area. This is the rainfall the last four days and this is as of 5:00 today. Um, and we've already had more rain over St. Pete. So, check this out. Sarasota, Bradington, 1.79, one of the lower spots got absolutely nothing on Friday or a lot of these areas got rain on Friday. So, that was why they're falling behind a little bit there.

[00:19:37]Winter Haven 2.67, Brooksville 3.03, Tampa 2.58 with official location St. Petersburg's the big winner there at 5.32 and that number is going to come up because it did rain after these numbers came in. Seinal, this is from our Cook Ross network. 7.47 was the big winner. I looked all around the map for the last 4 days and again possibly add to that number because when I looked up the number was 5:00 when these official numbers came in. So, we could potentially get a little bit more than that. So, that was the four days of the weather impact alert. still expect another line to move its way onshore over the course of the next couple of hours. So again, adding to these numbers a little bit more, but it's good. Tampa 6.10, Sarasota again, a little bit behind with a little less than 4 in, but Brooksville 6.15 and Winter Haven 7.73.

[00:20:29]And there's your departure now. Sarasota is the only spot for the month of July that is down almost 3/4 of an inch.

[00:20:36]Tampa up 1.37. Brooksville over a quarter inch up. Look at Winter Haven again. Like I've mentioned several times, Winter Haven has really gone really well with our rainy season so far. 3.22 up for the month and they're the only one in the plus or anywhere close to the plus for the year to date.

[00:20:56]This is since January 1st. You can see 588, 596, and 7.20. So again, I really have a a feeling that our drought monitor might actually change because these numbers go from last Tuesday to tonight and those numbers will go into the drought monitor which will be updated and the map will be published this coming Thursday. So aside from what we have turnurning offshore, we're going to take a quick break and we'll talk about our extended rain chances coming up. Stick around.