The National Hurricane Center said Friday it is tracking three systems in the Atlantic, including one that is likely to become a tropical depression in the coming days.
The NHC said a “broad area of low pressure” is likely to develop over the southwestern Caribbean Sea during the next day or so, and “gradual development” is possible thereafter.
But for those keeping track in the U.S., forecasters have good news: It’s unlikely the storm will track that far north, thanks to “hostile” winds.
The hurricane center gives the system a 70 percent chance of formation through the next seven days. The next named storms of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season will be Patty and Rafael.
“A tropical depression is likely to form late this weekend or early next week while the system drifts” in the Caribbean Sea, hurricane center forecasters said Friday morning.
“Regardless of its development, locally heavy rains are possible over portions of the adjacent land areas of the western Caribbean,” the NHC said.
Forecasters say most long-range models keep the system away from the U.S. due to fierce winds over the Gulf of Mexico. “Hostile wind shear consistent with what we’d expect in the Gulf in early November says this doesn’t make it very far,” noted WPLG-TV meteorologist Michael Lowry in his blog Friday.
According to AccuWeather, an area of high pressure expected to develop over the U.S. East Coast next week could be strong enough to push it into Central America or Mexico.
“So while whatever comes of the system could bring impacts to parts of Mexico and Central America next week, it’s unlikely the U.S. will see any significant impacts given the hostile upper-wind configuration of early November,” Lowry said.
He added that even if the system bends northward into the central or northern Gulf next week, it’ll get “quickly dismantled by a blistering wall of wind shear tearing across the entirety of the northern and central Gulf of Mexico.”
NHC keeping tabs on 2 other systems in the Atlantic
The hurricane center also said it is tracking two other systems in the Atlantic, although both have low chances of formation.
The first one is described by the NHC as a “trough of low pressure” located near Puerto Rico that is producing a “large area of showers and thunderstorms” over portions of the Greater Antilles and the adjacent waters of the Atlantic and northeastern Caribbean.
“Slow development of this system is possible during the next few days as it moves west-northwestward near the Great Antilles,” NHC forecasters said Friday morning, although after that time, the system is expected to be absorbed into the low pressure area over the Caribbean.
“Regardless of development, locally heavy rains are possible during the next several days from the northern Leeward Islands westward across Puerto Rico and Hispaniola to eastern Cuba and the southeastern Bahamas,” the NHC said Friday.
The hurricane center describes the second system as a “storm-force non-tropical low-pressure area” located about 400 miles west of the western Azores. According to the NHC, the system is producing limited shower activity, and some subtropical development is possible while the system moves eastward during the next few days.
With information from National Hurricane Center
TYT Newsroom
