Manatee emergency officials prepare for storm

Manatee County officials are keeping an eye on a storm system brewing in the Gulf of Mexico and making preparations.

Manatee County Emergency Operations Center has tentatively scheduled a briefing for 10 a.m. Sunday to “make sure everyone is all set for this rain event,” said Don Hermey, county emergency management chief.

Flooding, rip tides and high surfs are areas of concern for Manatee County officials, Hermey said.

“We aren’t doing anything really, really special,” he said Friday afternoon. “For us, it is just making sure we are ready. ... We are expecting business as usual on Monday.”

The system brewing in the western Caribbean has a 60 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression or storm in the next five days, according to the Miami Herald.

Under the forecast, the storm could drop between 2 and 4 inches of rain on South Florida and 6 and 8 inches in Central Florida, according to the Miami Herald.

The National Weather Service has said things could get “kind of ugly Monday and into Tuesday,” Hermey said, adding there could be some wind gusts upwards of 30 mph.

“We are talking a rain event,” Hermey said. “It is a depression. It doesn’t look like it is escalating to much of anything. There will be more rain than usual. We have had a dry spell, which means it isn’t going to quickly absorb like it normally does.”

The heat will be on before the storm, according to Juli Marquez, Bay News 9 meteorologist.

She forecast Saturday will be partly sunny and hot with temperatures hitting the low 90s.

“Bigger changes are on the way as deeper moisture moves to Florida during the next several days,” Marquez said. “We have a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms this weekend.”

An area of low pressure is forecast to develop near the Yucatan peninsula Sunday and move across the eastern Gulf of Mexico and across the Florida peninsula Monday and Tuesday.

Marquez said this leads to widespread showers and thunderstorms and a threat of heavy rain Monday and Tuesday.

This story was originally published June 3, 2016 at 3:48 PM with the headline "Manatee emergency officials prepare for storm."