The National Hurricane Center on Monday continued to track a tropical disturbance that could become the next named storm.
And it could head toward Florida by the end of the week.
The disturbance was located in the central tropical Atlantic on Monday morning. It had a 50 percent probability of becoming a tropical depression or storm in the next seven days.
The hurricane center expects the system to track to the west-northwest, and it could move near or over Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Hispaniola, Cuba, and eventually Florida.
However, the system was still unorganized, so that path could shift as it evolves this week. It’s still too soon to say the storm could affect the continental U.S.
The hurricane center said the system could strengthen into a tropical depression by the middle or the latter part of this week. It could be near the Greater Antilles (including Cuba and Hispaniola) or the Bahamas at that time.
A system has to have a defined center of circulation and winds of at least 39 mph to be considered a tropical storm and get a name. The next name on the 2024 Atlantic storm list is Debby.
The National Weather Service in Miami continued to track the system and said on Monday that “forecast confidence remains quite low,” when it comes to the system.
Forecasters said models “depict various levels of wave organization, ranging from a ‘sloppy’ open wave to a likely named storm, and also forecast tracks ranging from the central GOM (Gulf of Mexico) to comfortably east of the Florida Peninsula. This uncertainty is not overly surprising given the fairly broad nature of the wave, which adds uncertainty to which portion of the wave eventually becomes dominant, which in turn will affect its track and potential interaction with the Greater Antilles.”
There have been three named storms so far in the Atlantic in 2024, including Category 5 Hurricane Beryl (which hit Texas as a Category 1 hurricane after also hitting the Windward Islands and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula) and tropical storms Alberto and Chris, both of which struck Mexico’s Gulf Coast.
August typically gets much busier for tropical activity in the Atlantic, with Sept. 10 being the climatological peak of the season.
The Atlantic hurricane season has its climatological peak on Sept. 10.
The Atlantic hurricane season officially ends on Nov. 30.
