FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ As Hurricane Michael approaches the Florida Panhandle, a depression east of Africa has become Tropical Storm Nadine, the 14th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.
Nadine maintained wind speeds near 40 mph throughout Tuesday afternoon and may strengthen over the next day or so, according to the National Hurricane Center. However, the storm is expected to fizzle out and dissipate in the open waters after running into wind shear, drier air and slightly cooler ocean temperatures, forecasters say.
As of 5 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Nadine was more than 3,300 miles from South Florida and posed no immediate threat to land.
The Hurricane Center forecasts that Nadine will begin to weaken Thursday.
It's another busy period for the tropics, with Michael and Nadine joined by Tropical Storm Leslie, which is still churning well north of here. Leslie is forecast to become a hurricane again on Wednesday, the hurricane center said, but it poses no immediate threat to land.
Hurricane Michael, meanwhile, is expected to make landfall Wednesday in Florida's Panhandle and could do so as a catastrophic Category 3 storm.
And there is also a newly identified area of disturbed weather over the western Caribbean Sea that could develop by the weekend. Forecasters are giving the system a 20 percent chance of development over the next five days.
