Tropical Storm Chantal is bringing heavy rains to northeastern South Carolina as it moves north.

Parts of South Florida are bracing for gusty showers and thunderstorms Friday, with forecasters warning of winds up to 45 miles per hour and flashes of lightning as cells move quickly across the region.

Tropical Storm Chantal crept closer to the South Carolina coast Saturday evening, prompting expanded tropical storm warnings and raising concerns about flash flooding, heavy rainfall and gusty winds across parts of the Carolinas through the end of the weekend.

The National Hurricane Center announced on Friday afternoon that there was an Atlantic tropical depression gradually strengthening near Florida.

Showers and thunderstorms are becoming more concentrated around an area of low pressure – now designated Invest 92L – centered about 100 miles off the coast of northeast Florida.

Most of South Florida is waking up to warm, muggy conditions this Fourth of July, and while rain may soak some midday parades and barbecues, meteorologists say skies should clear in time for the fireworks.

A combination of weather features, including a stalled front and developing area of low pressure off northeast Florida, have turned on the holiday tap, directing rounds of tropically-infused storms toward the Florida peninsula beginning today and extending into the holiday weekend.

We continue to monitor a weakening cold front now over the southeast U.S. that’s expected to stall over Florida by late week and could spin off a tropical depression or named storm by the weekend or early next week.

Only days after the U.S. Department of Defense abruptly announced the immediate termination of satellite data critical to hurricane forecasts – granted a moratorium early Monday through July – NOAA posted details of its 2026 budget request to Congress.

The ability to track the intensity of hurricanes reliably has improved significantly in recent years.

As darkness descended on the Gulf of Mexico in October, a 1970s-era U.S. government turboprop plane neared the eye of the newly formed Hurricane Milton.

A stalled front across Florida’s peninsula later this week could spawn a tropical system over the northeastern Gulf or off the Southeast U.S. by the Fourth of July weekend.

An area of disturbed weather moving through the western Caribbean is expected to cross into the Bay of Campeche in the lower reaches of the Gulf this weekend where it could gradually organize if the system remains over the waters north of Mexico.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Defense announced it would immediately stop ingesting, processing, and transmitting data essential to most hurricane forecasts.

The low-level cloud swirl spinning harmlessly over the open waters of the high Atlantic wasn’t much to look at on Tuesday but managed to muster up enough steam for NHC to briefly classify it Tropical Storm Andrea, the first named storm of the 2025 hurricane season.

The National Hurricane Center says Tropical Storm Andrea is expected to weaken quickly and become a post-tropical low soon.