During the last week of July, a cold front extending from Texas to the northeast U.S. pushed south and east, weakening as it did so. By July 30, the southern half of the cold front had moved over the Gulf of Mexico and stalled. A non-tropical low quickly formed along it just south of the Florida panhandle and moved slowly toward the east. Overnight, thunderstorm activity became clustered around the circulation center and the system became organized enough to merit tropical depression status early on July 31. Just two hours after formation, radar indicated that Tropical Depression Six's maximum winds had risen to 45 mph and it was upgraded to Tropical Storm Emily.
The storm moved just south of east through the morning and made landfall near Tampa, Florida before noon. Heavy rain fell even as the system weakened over land, with the heaviest south of the center. By the afternoon, the system had weakened to a depression. It accelerated and turned toward the northeast overnight and emerged over open Atlantic waters east of Florida early on August 1. Emily's grip on tropical cyclone status was quite tenuous by this time: only scattered bursts of disorganized convection remained. Late that night, it was downgraded to a remnant low. This low continued out to sea over the next several days before dissipation.
The above image shows Tropical Storm Emily making landfall in Florida within 12 hours of formation.
Emily was yet another short-lived tropical storm, the fifth of the 2017 season. In fact, the combined ACE (accumulated cyclone energy) of these storms was the lowest on record for the first five of an Atlantic hurricane season.
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