Tropical wave Invest 91-L forms in Gulf, expected to bring Florida rain

The National Hurricane Center says an area of low pressure in the Gulf of Mexico has become tropical wave Invest 91-L.Forecasters are closely watching this “invest,” or area of interest, because it is expected to impact Florida in the coming days.WESH 2’s First Warning Weather team has been monitoring the area of interest since Monday evening on Coffee Talk with meteorologist Eric Burris.In the NHC’s Wednesday evening update, the chances of development remain the same. The area of unorganized moisture has a low-end 20% chance of forming into something tropical over the next seven days. Within the next two days, there’s a 20% chance of formation.”The system is then forecast to move across the Florida Peninsula this weekend and emerge into the southwestern Atlantic Ocean by early next week. Regardless of development, the system could produce heavy rainfall and gusty winds over portions of the Florida Peninsula later this week,” the National Hurricane Center said.Related: WESH 2 Hurricane Survival Guide 2023Related: WESH 2 2023 Hurricane Season ForecastAccording to Burris, the atmosphere isn’t all that favorable for development, but this area moves toward our area by late this week into the weekend, bringing showers and storms. NHC’s Hurricane Hunters will embark on its first hurricane recon mission this season on Thursday, the first day of hurricane season, to investigate the disturbance.What is an Invest? Every year when hurricane season approaches, you’ll start to see tropical talk centered around something called an “invest.” Invest is short for “investigation” and it refers to a weather feature that the NHC is investigating. It should be noted that it is not necessarily an area that is expected to develop into a tropical system. It’s simply an area being investigated for any number of reasons.In their glossary, the NHC defines an invest as: “a weather system for which the NHC is interested in collecting specialized data sets and/or running model guidance. Once a system has been designated as an invest, data collection and processing is initiated on a number of government and academic websites.”Areas of investigation in the Atlantic Basin are given numbers from 90-99. The first invest of a season will be named Invest 90-L. The “L” means it’s in the Atlantic (“A” is assigned to invests in the Arabian Sea and “E” is for areas in the Eastern Pacific Ocean). The numbers repeat, which means the second invest of a season will get the name Invest 91-L. After Invest 99-L, the numbers recycle back to 90.The purpose of the numbers is basically just to name which disturbance is being tracked since there is usually more than one happening at the same time.Related content:Hurricane preparedness: Essential steps to protect yourself and your homeHow to prepare for flooding produced by hurricanesHurricane watches, warnings: What they mean and what to do duringTop headlines:Police: 4 children, 5 adults shot near beach in FloridaPolice: Baby dies after parents leave her in car to go to church in Palm BayMan goes overboard on Carnival cruise off Florida coast, Coast Guard says