LIVE: Tropical Storm Helene real-time wobble tracker

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Tropical Storm Helene formed Tuesday morning as it began its path to hitting Florida.

Forecast models predict that the storm will make landfall as a potential Category 3 Hurricane somewhere in the Big Bend region of Florida or the Florida Panhandle. However, the impacts will likely be felt along Florida’s Gulf Coast further away.

However, as Helene continues moving forward, there will likely still be changes in its path that will affect where it is headed.

WFLA meteorologists track “wobbles,” or small movements, on the system’s path. Those wobbles determine where the tropical storm is headed.

While the movements may seem negligible at first glance, these wobbles do make a big difference when they compound into a change in the storm’s path.

This was the case when Max Defender 8 first launched the wobble tracker for Hurricane Ian, a Category 5 hurricane that was originally expected to make a direct hit on Tampa Bay but “wobbled” further south to its landfall in Charlotte County, Florida.

The wobble tracker watches the motion of hurricanes and tropical storms by using a combination of data from satellites, radar, the forecast trajectory, and the previous path the storm is on, to give an indication how the path is changing in real time.

The WFLA Wobble Tracker will remain actively streaming 24/7 until Helene makes landfall.

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