In an unusual hurricane season that’s seemed to especially pick on Florida, we are officially on the final lap with a little more than two weeks to go.

The National Hurricane Center reports development is not expected over the next 5 days. And while long range models support additional tropical formation is unlikely, we will continue to monitor the tropics through the official end of the season on November 30th.

Hurricane Nicole, which made landfall near Vero Beach, FL last week became the latest calendar year hurricane to hit the east coast of Florida on record. The next name on the list would be Owen.

Thusfar, the 2022 hurricane season has produced 14 named storms, 8 hurricanes, 2 of which have reached major status category 3 strength or above. This means that while we had a slow start, it has turned out to be a near average season at the finish.

Nicole made landfall just south of Vero Beach, FL at about 3AM Thursday morning as category 1 hurricane with max winds of 75 mph. As of 10AM, max winds are down to 50 mph, and the center of the storm was located about 30 miles northeast of Tampa. It’s moving along at a pretty good pace, and the weather across Central Florida should gradually improve this afternoon into this evening.

Additional storm surge flooding is still likely for coastal Georgia and South Carolina this afternoon through Friday morning as the circulation moves north and strong onshore flow persists.

Quite a bit of rain will spreading north through the Southeast and up the East Coast over the next 48 hours. A swath of 1-3″ is likely from North Florida to Maine, with isolated higher amounts possible.