After becoming a tropical storm late Tuesday night, Fred must now traverse the highly mountainous terrain of Hispanola (Dominican Republic/Haiti). As of 11am Wednesday, Fred was located about 25 miles south-southeast of the Dominican republic with max winds of 45 mph. It’s a rather ragged looking system at the moment.

The trek across Hispanola will undoubtedly weaken the storm in the short term, and the process of restrengthening on its approach to Florida will likely be slow. With a favorable environment across the Florida straits and the eastern Gulf, we’ll have to be on the lookout for any substantial strengthening as the storm nears Florida this weekend. At the moment, majority of model guidance keeps this below hurricane intensity.

As is often the case, location and significance of any impacts for Florida will be highly dependent on the storm’s exact track – something that will become more clear in the coming days. For now, plan on increased rain chances and possibly some gusty winds for parts of the state over the weekend.

We’ve been tracking several different areas of investigation over the last few days, as hurricane season begins to ramp up after a quiet stretch.

While there are no disturbances we need to be concerned about at the moment, Invest 94L will need to be watched closely through the week as it moves across the northern Caribbean. This will generally be in the vicinity of Florida by next weekend. Beyond increased rain chances for parts of the state it’s simply too early to speculate about any possible impacts. With land interaction, dry air, and some pockets of higher wind shear to contend with at times, this may simply be a slug of moisture when all is said and done. So, for now, we continue to keep a close eye on it and will keep you apprised of any development in the coming days.