New Emerging Tropical Storm to Threaten Nature Coast

I was driving down the road just a few minutes ago, listening to my local public radio station here in Gainesville, when they broke into the regular programming to give news of a new tropical depression, currently centered just north of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula in the southern Gulf of Mexico.  Maximum sustained winds are at 35 mph...at 39, which is expected to happen in the next few hours, it will become Colin, the third named tropical storm of this 2016 Atlantic hurricane system.  According to the Weather Channel just now, Colin is expected to continue strengthening in the Gulf while its trajectory takes it first to the north and then to the northeast.  Landfall, at least as they see it now, should be sometime Monday along what is commonly called Florida's "Nature Coast", which is the stretch of Gulf coastline stretching eastward from the Apalachicola peninsula in the state's panhandle and then southward along the peninsula to just north of Tarpon Springs.  Colin is not forecast to reach hurricane status before landfall...so far they're predicting sustained winds of only around 50 mph when that occurs.  But we in Gainesville may well get some strong rain and storms within the next day or two...and Cedar Key could be dramatically impacted should Colin hit it directly.  Right now the meteorologists are relatively unsure about its precise future course.  That having been said, if you live in Gainesville, its vicinity...or especially points west (like Gilchrist, Levy, or Dixie County)...it would probably be a good idea to keep tuned to weather updates while making yourself prepared for heavy rain and wind in the near future...