This area in the Gulf of Mexico has gotten itself together fairly quickly, and the NHC issued a special tropical weather outlook with a 40% chance for tropical or subtropical development.

The biggest story here will be rainfall, upwards of 5-6 inches in parts of the Florida peninsula.

This system isn't purely tropical now, but it could become a small tropical storm before it would eventually landfall (probably somewhere in the Panhandle Wednesday or Thursday) However, most of the rainfall energy will be well to the east, which should drive the rainy weather toward the Florida peninsula. 5-6 inches in a few places, possibly.

There are signals of increased divergence aloft, which is what would be needed for something tropical or subtropical to form in the system. Shear is still fairly strong, but weakening a bit, with both the GFS and European models showing this area developing into a tropical or subtropical storm in 3 days or so.

The forecast lounge is where we make guesses and discuss the forecast models and what they are forecasting, knowing that hey are imperfect (especially the further out in time). Trends rather than specific runs tend to be more important, along with verification of what's actually going on vs what the model projected. And various models taken as a group, with no clear leader.