Forecast for 97L
The storm is in a fairly straightforward steering current environment, and 97L should progress steadily to the west-northwest through Saturday. The rains from 97L's thunderstorms will bring the threat of flooding to the Dominican Republic today and Wednesday, and to Haiti on Wednesday and Thursday. Heavy rains from 97L will begin moving into eastern Cuba, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the eastern Bahamas on Wednesday, and
South Florida can expect heavy rains to arrive as early as Thursday night. We do have several models developing 97L into a tropical depression or tropical storm. The GFS and HWRF both take 97L to tropical storm status over the Bahamas by Thursday, with the storm then tracking over South Florida on Friday and entering the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday. The NOGAPS is similar, but portrays a weaker system.
All of these models foresee a threat to the oil spill region by Saturday night or Sunday, with the storm making a second landfall somewhere between the Florida Panhandle and Louisiana.http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html