As of 8 p.m. Thursday, the broad area of low pressure was a few hundred miles off the coast of the southeastern U.S., producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms. It is not expected to develop before it moves over the Carolinas on Friday, the hurricane center said.

While having a near zero chance of developing as of Thursday night, the system could still add to areas of heavy rain and possible flash flooding in parts of North and South Carolina and in the mid-Atlantic region through Friday night, the hurricane center said.

A wetter weekend is still in store for South Florida, a result of “moist and unstable” air, said Luke Culver, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Miami..

In South Florida, rain chances will hover around 60% to 70% with storms most likely to strike in the afternoon and evening with a possibility for early morning showers.

This pattern “is closer to what is typical for our area in the summer months,” Culver said.

The slightly heightened chances for rain combined with overcast and windy conditions over the next few days also mean temperatures won’t be nearly as high as earlier in the week when South Florida was rife with heat advisories.

Highs will be in the upper-80s and lower-90s with lows in the lower-80s and upper-70s, Culver said, with the heat index between 103 and 107.

At least 26,000 gallons of wastewater spills, mostly raw sewage, were reported to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection as of Friday.

In each instance, the flooding was so severe that officials said it’s not possible to tell exactly how much wastewater was released. Instead, estimates were provided.

In Tampa Bay and neighboring tributaries like the Manatee River and Boca Ciega Bay, winds and high seas toppled boats, sending their gasoline into the waters below. Hurricane Idalia’s floodwaters are also being blamed for a kerosene leak that sent flammable liquid into a St. Petersburg mobile home park.

The largest wastewater spill reported so far was in Punta Gorda, an area hit hard by Hurricane Ian last year. On Sept. 1, it was reported to the state that Idalia’s rainfall caused hydraulics at the city’s Pelican Harbor wastewater treatment plant to fail completely.

Somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 gallons of wastewater spilled due to the malfunction, which then flowed into the area surrounding the plant and into a pipe that empties into the Peace River. The river flows into the Gulf of Mexico.

The report sent to the state said that the area around the plant, along with a section of the Peace River, will be tested for E. coli and other harmful bacteria. An update had not been provided at the time of publication.

Another estimated 6,000 gallons spilled in Punta Gorda when a sewer line ruptured while the area was under water due to flooding from Idalia, according to the report.

In Crystal River in Citrus County, the sewer station was overrun with flood waters. According to a report, staff watched as water from the gulf entered the facility and mixed with sewage until the storm surge receded. An estimated five to 10 thousand gallons of sewage escaped during the event.

In Leon County, where Tallahassee is located, an estimated 2,500 gallons of sewage spilled near Piney Z Lake after Idalia caused a power outage at a wastewater pumping station.

On the same day, a Clearwater wastewater station on Harbor Drive near the Gulf of Mexico was inundated with flood water and leaked sewage. A representative for the city said it was impossible to know exactly how much was released, but didn’t believe it was a large amount because so many people were already evacuated from the area and so less sewage was being created.

In Fort Meade, south of Lakeland, water from a reclaimed mining site leaked due to Idalia flooding. A representative of Mosaic, the company that owns the site, said that the spill was around 1,000 gallons.

In Charlotte County, 2,400 gallons of raw wastewater spilled, but the county says all of the water that was spilled was recovered because it was in a contained area.

In Pinellas County, early reports show sinking boats likely dumped diesel and oil into area waterways, including in Boca Ciega Bay and even inside Tampa Bay itself. In one instance, a boat owner alerted the U.S. Coast Guard on Aug. 30 that his boat was pushed against a seawall in Boca Ciega Bay during the storm, and that 15 gallons of diesel and motor oil were spilling into the water, causing a rainbow sheen to emerge around the vessel.

That same day, a caller alerted the Coast Guard that a derelict jet ski was floating in Tampa Bay, with a sheen of oil veiling the watercraft. The incident is being attributed to Hurricane Idalia, according to pollution reports filed to the federal National Response Center, a pollution reporting call center.

Idalia’s floodwaters caused up to 20 gallons of kerosene to leak from an underground tank at Crosswinds mobile home park in St. Petersburg, sending the hazardous fuel down the park’s street and around roughly 10 temporary homes, according to Jim Millican, division chief of the Lealman Fire District.

When Lealman fire crews arrived on the scene the morning of Aug. 30, they built a dam around the spill to prevent it from spreading, Millican said.

“We diked and dammed it so that it couldn’t travel any further and it couldn’t make it into the storm sewer system,” Millican said. The Lealman Fire District consulted with Pinellas County about a hazardous material response, and the remainder of the cleanup was left in the hands of the trailer park’s management group.

To the north, in Tarpon Springs, a caller to the National Response Center reported that when Idalia’s floodwaters receded, diesel oil covered the ground near a canal bordering St. Joseph Sound. The person who reported the pollution suspected it likely stemmed from a sunken barge, according to an initial pollution report.

Once the storm passed and the surge receded, more evidence of spills began to appear. On Aug. 31, a caller to the federal response center said a boat was caught underneath a dock in the Manatee River. The vessel had taken on water during the storm, and there was a sheen of oil around where it now rested, according to a pollution notice.

In Horseshoe Beach, near where Idalia made landfall, aerial drone imagery from Tampa Bay Times reporters showed displaced vehicles spewing gasoline into neighborhood canals. Smaller-scale spills like these are hard to identify in the wake of a storm, and will typically go unreported to state and federal environment regulators.

While it may take months for the full scope of Hurricane Idalia’s environmental toll to come to light, the early snapshot shows Florida waters may have fared better in this storm compared with Hurricane Ian in September of last year.

For instance, at least 17 million gallons of dirty wastewater were dumped into Manatee County waterways alone during Ian, pollution reports showed. Tampa area waters saw more than 300,000 gallons of wastewater spills during Ian.

©2023 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

But in the tight-knit city of about 7,000, at least the people of Perry have each other.

“We lost everything,” said Jean Padgett, whose father-in-law is Taylor County Sheriff Wayne Padgett. “In this community, we’re all out here together. You can’t beat Taylor County.”

Before returning to salvage what she could from her home, Padgett did what good neighbors do. She stopped to help her brother pass out water donated by ABC Supply Co. of Tallahassee. While handing out water and cans of gasoline, a stranger stopped to unload his car full of additional water cases.

That was just one small act of kindness witnessed just a day after Taylor County faced the most powerful storm to hit the region in more than a century.

Idalia, with 125 mph winds, came ashore early Wednesday about 20 miles south of Perry near Keaton Beach. The western eyewall of the storm passed directly over the town.

On Thursday afternoon in downtown Perry, volunteers donated hotdogs and hamburgers while crews got to work clearing trees blocking many neighborhood roads, creating a challenging maze to navigate.

Outside of the First Assembly of God Church, cars lined up to receive boxes of food, water, ice and other essential goods.

Convoys of utility trucks hauled linemen and poles through town to restore power, while neighbors spotted each other in traffic and shouted across the street, “Are you all OK?”

“When the chips are down, the people of Perry and Taylor County really come together. There are a lot of people hurting, a lot of people have a lot to deal with,” said Pastor Tony O. Graham, who leads the congregation at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church. “We’re resilient. We’re going to stay the course, and we’re all going to make it together.”

In a county that prides itself on its pine industry and forested land totaling more than 500,000 acres, falling trees did the most damage to power lines and property. While many roofs were mostly unscathed, formidable oaks and pines slammed onto houses and across streets.

“You never expect ground zero to be where you live,” said Jessica Archer, whose family roots in Perry date back to the 1800s. “Seeing these 80-foot pine trees just snapped in half is shocking … We watched trees get pulled up out of the ground in our neighbor’s yard.”

Deacon Freddie Richet, 80, lives in a house built in the 1950s that once belonged to his parents. He considered weathering the storm at home before evacuating to be with family in Albany, Georgia, about 120 miles north.

“I bought this property here and I moved the house over here in 2005. I was born and raised right across the road there,” he said. “I was going to stay here but I told myself, ‘Don’t be hard-headed.’”

Richet returned to find part of his home’s original tin roof sheared off and sitting in the yard. Despite that, he’s grateful.

“It could have been a whole lot worse,” he said. “I try not to worry about something I can’t do nothing about. I can do something about this.”

He’s just one of many Perry residents picking up the pieces. Many in the county are without power and in Perry, even some traffic lights were operating on generator power.

On Thursday morning, the gas station lines for adjacent Shell and Arco stations were backed up onto the road.

Gregg Strevel, who’s lived in Perry for about 50 years, filled up his generator before heading home.

“This is the first storm I’ve seen like this,” he said. “It’s going to take a while. We’re getting it all put back together.”

Deacon Carl Williams, 77, who works with Graham in the Baptist church, rode out the storm in Tallahassee with his wife and returned to find downed trees on both sides of his house. Luckily, his roof was spared.

“I was glad to see my house is still here,” Williams said. “I thank the Lord. I can get another house, but I can’t get another me.”

Idalia stormed ashore early Wednesday as a strong Category 3 storm, bringing with it estimated winds of 125 mph and dangerous storm surge that was forecasted to rise by up to 16 feet on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

In Steinhatchee, a coastal community with about 1,000 residents, the streets were eerily quiet after the storm’s departure, punctuated by the occasional passing truck and chainsaws working in the distance. Metal roofs were sheared, canopies collapsed, tree debris scattered and one catamaran wedged into a vertical position near the bank of the Steinhatchee River.

Travis Ross, who grew up in the town, took his wife and four kids to stay with family in Hillsborough County. He returned around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday to find his newly built home on stilts all in one piece.

“I didn’t sleep none … There’s a bar and restaurant that blew all to pieces here,” Ross said. “This was the first storm I’ve ever left for.”

His neighbor, Dave Ebert, who moved to Steinhatchee four years ago after retiring, heard a large, 100-year-old oak tree limb snap and land on his roof just after 1 a.m. He said he lost power, but the branch didn’t put a hole in the house.

“My neighbor stayed and had a foot and a half of water inside his house,” Ebert said. “I stayed to protect my house.”

Ebert said another neighbor registered a 143 mph wind gust on his weather station.

Along the scenic Steinhatchee River, the town’s focal point, the hurricane’s force and storm surge downed awnings, crunched docks and tossed boats awry. The waterfront Steinhatchee River Inn and Marina suffered a number of storm-related damages.

A man who identified himself as the owner walked up to assess the damage and said he didn’t have time to talk with so much work ahead.

“As long as everyone is safe,” he said, placing a premium on human lives and livelihood over property damage, which can be fixed in time.

Despite officials urging everyone to evacuate, Cedar Key resident Michael Bobbitt told MSNBC that he chose to ride out the storm. He said he did it because he knew the other people who didn’t leave would need help in the aftermath.

“All of our commercial buildings downtown are underwater and a serious percentage of our homes have been inundated with water,” said Bobbitt, who huddled in his 117-year-old house on a hill.

Bobbitt was one of an estimated 100 residents who chose to hunker down and ride out the storm. By noon Wednesday, Gulf Search and Rescue and American Yellow Cross — both volunteer groups with members from as far away as Texas and Idaho — were staged near the causeway leading to the island.

“I came in for Hurricane Ian last year. In the last 19 years, I’ve worked every hurricane that made landfall in the U.S.,” said Jake Stovall, Gulf SAR’s founder and director. “If we don’t have any rescues, that’s a great day.”

After boats from both groups launched into the white-capped waters lapping at Cedar Key’s shores, they were called back with the news that most, if not all, of the small city’s hurricane holdouts were accounted for.

In the early afternoon, Cedar Key Police Chief Edwin Jenkins stood guard at the bridge, controlling entry while the island remained closed to assess storm damage.

One longtime resident, 82-year-old Herman Wells, evacuated to escape Idalia’s rage but found he wasn’t allowed to return home.

“I’m not moving … I know how to swim,” he told Jenkins in a tense exchange before yielding and turning back inland.

Cedar Key City Commissioner Sue Colson said the island shut down overnight as the worst of Hurricane Idalia approached the island community.

“It’s not the city’s call, it’s the [Florida] Department of Transportation. Bridges are vital for entry and FDOT needs to make sure they are safe,” she said. “We’re out assessing today and getting debris removed so electric trucks can get through.”

Colson anticipates that the island will reopen on Thursday if FDOT deems the causeway safe for passage. She said that efforts were underway to check houses where residents chose to stay.

The Global Forecast System, or GFS, model, is run by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s one of several the National Hurricane Center uses to predict the three- and five-day storm paths for tropical systems.

According to its models from Tuesday, the GFS predicts Hurricane Idalia could make its way off the coast of the Carolinas and then be dragged back south and then southwest toward Florida’s coast.

Hurricane Idalia now major Category 4 hurricane with 130 mph winds ahead of landfall

Meteorologist Ari Sarsalari with The Weather Channel said it was the lone model among the sundry paths they look at that suggest it would follow that path, and that it would not be a storm of any magnitude at that point.

“It wouldn’t be that big of a deal. I just found it interesting,” he said.

Other models do show it returning for another landfall on the U.S. including the European model that suggests it could come back toward the Carolina.

The reason for the potential return trip west is the steering patterns currently over the U.S. involve a trough that is pulling Idalia now toward Florida’s coast and will shove it out over the Atlantic. But then there will be a large ridge of high pressure over the U.S. that could suck it back in, Sarsalari said.

But again, if it does return, it would do so “not as a strong storm,” he said.

Read more at weather.com.

He and his wife live by the marina, only a few feet from the water, and wanted to stack sandbags along their front door and garage before then-Tropical Storm Idalia came closer.

“We’re just trying to prepare, get ready what we can,” said Guasp, 68, who recently retired. “My wife, she gets really worried.”

The Guasps were among the thousands of Tampa Bay residents trying to prepare for the storm closing in on Florida’s west coast. As the day wore on, and Floridians filled their grocery carts with bottled water and Bud Light, ran to the ATM and topped off their gas tanks, some were ready to hunker down and ride it out. Others reserved rooms in Orlando and on the east coast.

And many struggled to decide: Should I stay? Or go?

Last year, as Hurricane Ian spun offshore, Guasp and his wife evacuated to stay with relatives in Lakeland. Though the destruction in Fort Myers frightened them, they weren’t planning to leave this time. “It wasn’t worth it,” Guasp said.

About 20 other people were there shoveling sand. Residents were allowed to fill 10 bags each. By noon, people had hauled away more than 5,000. After Guasp loaded his into his trunk, he stayed to help.

• • •

On the other side of Boca Ciega Bay, the Pinellas beaches were eerily empty.

Along Gulf Boulevard, from Pass-a-Grille to Clearwater, few cars traveled in either direction on the usually clogged route. Landscaping trucks and law enforcement vehicles made up most of the traffic. Many restaurants and shops were shuttered.

Workers carried chairs and canvas canopies off the beaches. Nearly every hotel sign said, “Vacant.”

Elizabeth Robson was manning Paradiso boutique in Pass-a-Grille about 1 p.m. when someone started screwing plastic window shields onto the shop across the street. Her store had sandbags beside the beach umbrellas out front, but nothing covering the wide windows and no plan — yet — about when to close.

“I’m nervous,” said Robson, thinking of Hurricane Ian. “With climate change, everything is just getting worse. It’s real.”

She hadn’t decided whether to leave. Her home is in Vina Del Mar, an island just over a bridge from the beach. “I’m waiting to see what happens,” she said. “I just put the wind app on my phone.”

Only four customers had come in. “I think everyone’s either gone, at home preparing, or watching their TV.”

She was trying to stay hopeful. “Last night, I saw a rainbow. Then a dolphin swam right under it. That has to mean something, right?”

• • •

A few doors down, at Shadrack’s bar, a dozen regulars were drinking beer, wondering if the storm would turn. Some had never experienced a hurricane. One planned to throw a party, another to escape to Melbourne.

Biscuit Shannon, 51, a lifelong Floridian who has tended bar there for 25 years, said, “I could care less about this storm. Doesn’t phase me at all.”

She has a block house on “high ground” in Pinellas Park. “I never evacuate,” she said. “I open my doors, blow up the air mattresses, fill the empty vodka bottles with water and have everyone ride it out.”

Since she loves to drink through a hurricane, her husband stays sober: “Someone has to keep a level head during the storm.”

“What’s this one called again?” a customer asked from the corner.

“I don’t know. Can’t pronounce it,” said someone else.

A woman set down her Budweiser bottle and insisted loudly, “Let’s talk about something else.”

• • •

At Paradise Grille on St. Pete Beach, cook Dominic Marone, 21, stared at the waterfront patio of empty picnic tables. Normally, by noon on a Monday, he would have served 100 customers. But just before 3 p.m., he’d only had 40 orders.

“It’s been dead — very dead — all day,” he said. “But it doesn’t surprise me. People are all worked up about this storm.”

He grew up in Florida, but last year’s hurricane was a turning point. “I never realized how much danger we actually were in until I saw what happened to Fort Myers,” he said. “We got incredibly lucky.”

Marone lives in a ground-floor apartment in downtown St. Petersburg and didn’t plan to evacuate. “I’ve got about 10 family members who live on the beach, and they’re all coming to bunk in with me tonight,” he said.

His family had never left their beach homes before, but after Ian, they decided to at least get away from the water.

• • •

Zuri Peth’s family had planned to stay on Treasure Island through Thursday. Peth, 33, had rented an Airbnb with her sister and brother-in-law, who had come from Minnesota.

But about 4 p.m., they stood in the parking lot of the public beach access, brushing sand off their feet, loading towels into their SUV. “Our place is in an A evacuation zone, so we have to get out by tonight,” said Anthony Feeter, 35. “We’re heading back to her house in Orlando right now.”

The family insisted they weren’t disappointed. They won’t get most of their money back. But they had a beautiful Monday on the sand — and the beach almost to themselves.

“You gotta take these storms seriously,” Peth said. “They didn’t get a warning in Maui, and look at the loss of lives.”

“We got a warning,” she said. “So we’re getting out.”

• • •

If the storm turned into a hurricane, as forecasted, and even some of the predicted surge caused the Intercoastal Waterway to rise, Lex Raas knew his beloved boats would be submerged.

So about 5 p.m., he and a crew of volunteers gathered beside the Clearwater Community Sailing Center to haul six-man outrigger canoes onto a long trailer to take to his son’s house.

The 45-foot racing vessels weighed 120 pounds each and needed four sets of hands to lift them. Each cost about $25,000.

“We’re just preparing for the worst, hoping for the best,” said Raas, 68, sweating. “Even if the storm misses us, these would all be underwater.”

Raas lives in an A evacuation zone, and was waiting to decide whether he would stay — or follow the boats to his son’s house on higher ground.

Behind him, fishing vessels had been anchored in the middle of the waterway, far from docks that could cause damage. In front of him, people were saving the rest of the canoes. Someone waved Raas over: They needed his help.

The man’s black T-shirt read: “It could always be worse.”

©2023 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

In the NHC’s 2 p.m. Monday tropical update, forecasters said the showers and thunderstorms of a broad area of low pressure located a couple of hundred miles northeast of the central Bahamas had decreased over the 24 hours since they first began tracking it.

21 May 8AM EDT: NHC is monitoring a large area of disturbed weather in the southwestern Atlantic. The chance of formation in the next 48 hours is low (10%). For the latest information, please visit https://t.co/tW4KeGe9uJ. pic.twitter.com/WTnE5pxE0H

— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) May 21, 2023

“Environmental conditions have become more hostile and development of this system is not expected while it moves north-northeastward at 5 to 10 mph over the southwestern Atlantic during the next day or so,” forecasters said.

They dropped the chances to 0% to form in the next week.

The tracking forecasts that began last week offer up a longer look ahead for the 2023 hurricane season. The NHC will project chances for systems up to seven days before formation, an increase of two days over previous seasons.

Hurricane season officially runs from June 1-Nov. 30, although many recent years have seen storms form before that official start.

Technically, the NHC said 2023 has already seen its first tracked system, although it wasn’t named. In an update this month, the NHC stated an area of low pressure that formed off the northeastern coast of the U.S. in mid-January was in fact a subtropical storm.

Its retroactive designation means that the next tracked system could end up being named Tropical Depression Two by the NHC, although often storms churn up fast enough for them to skip right over the depression phase and go right into being named a tropical storm.

The first named system of the year would be Tropical Storm Arlene.

In its Tropical Weather Outlook at 2 p.m. on Sunday, the hurricane center said the broad low pressure area “is producing an area a large area of disturbed weather extendinga couple hundred miles northeast of the Bahamas.”

The NHC noted, “environmental conditions are expected to become less favorable later today [Sunday] and development of this system is not expected as it moves generallynorth-northeastward over the southwestern Atlantic at 5 to 10 mph during the next couple of days.”

In addition to giving the system a 10% chance of developing into a depression in the next 48 hours, it also placed the same odds for its development over the next seven days.

Hurricane Center begins daily tropical updates; Oops, we already had 1 storm

Hurricane season does not officially start until June 1, but that doesn’t mean we could not have a named tropical storm or hurricane before then.

From 2015 to 2021, a named storm formed before June 1. Also, the hurricane center said earlier this month that upon review, we already had what should have been a named storm in January.

First, the good news: All is quiet 18 days before the official start of hurricane season on June 1.

“For the North Atlantic, Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico: Tropical cyclone formation is not expected during the next 7 days,” the NHC said in its first seasonal update.

Now, the somewhat weird news: We’ve already have had a subtropical storm this year, but most of us – including the NHC – didn’t realize it at the time.

In a “re-assessment of weather systems,” the National Hurricane Center said, “hurricane specialists have determined that an area of low pressure that formed off the northeastern coast of the United States in mid-January should be designated as a subtropical storm.”

The hurricane center said it would provide more information about its justification for classifying the January system as a sub-tropical storm in its Tropical Cyclone Report, which will be issued in the coming months.

Because of the January storm, the next tropical depression that forms will be known as “Tropical Depression Two,”  the NHC said. But the next tropical storm or hurricane will still get the name “Arlene,” which is the first name scheduled to be used this season.

The 2022 hurricane season had 14 named storms, including 10 hurricanes: Alex, Bonnie, Danielle, Earl, Fiona, Ian, Julia, Lisa, Martin and Nicole. Fiona and Ian were classified as major hurricanes.

There were also four tropical storms that did not reach hurricane strength: Alex, Colin, Gaston and Hermine.

Three hurricanes made landfall along the U.S. mainland coast, including two in Florida – Ian and Nicole.

Ian, which came ashore in Cayo Costa in Southwest Florida as a Category 4 storm with 150 mph maximum-sustained winds, tied for the fifth-strongest hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. In addition to its wind damage in Southwest Florida, Ian caused massive flooding in Central Florida from its heavy rain.

Hurricane season will begin on June 1 and run through Nov. 30.