Manatee County under a flood advisory warning as rain keeps falling

Most of Manatee County is under a flood advisory warning as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service in Ruskin.

The advisory is set to expire later today, but that will depend on the continued rainfall.

NWS reports that more than 2 inches of rain have fallen in the latest downpours and issued the flood advisory for portions of northwest Manatee County and northwest Sarasota County, to include Bradenton, Palmetto, Ellenton and Anna Maria Island.

With up to another 2 inches expected to fall before the latest storms subside, the NWS reports, “This additional rain will result in minor flooding.”

The latest forecast shows storms are likely throughout the evening and early morning hours with chance of precipitation being 60 percent through Friday when the chance of rain drops to 20 percent by Friday night.

Whether that forecast holds largely depends on the latest of what could become of a potential tropical system dropping out of the southeastern United States toward the Gulf of Mexico.

According to the National Hurricane Center, the low is currently entering the Gulf off the Florida Panhandle.

However, “Once the system is over water, environmental conditions are expected to be conducive for tropical cyclone formation, and a tropical depression is likely to develop by late Wednesday or Thursday while the system moves westward across the northern Gulf of Mexico,” NOAA reports.

NOAA reports that regardless of development, the system will bring heavy rainfall to areas of the Gulf Coast. Percentages of development have dramatically shifted over the last several days from 20 percent to 80 percent. NOAA’s estimate that a tropical system will develop is currently 50 percent over the next 48 hours and rises to 80 percent over the next five days.