ORLANDO, Fla. — On the fifth week of hurricane season, meteorologists are keeping their eyes on three disturbances with odds of becoming the second tropical storm of the season.
First, the National Hurricane Center continues to monitor a tropical wave over the central Atlantic that is continuing to improve its organization, according to the 2 p.m. ET Monday update.
The wave is located about 700 miles east-southeast of the Windward Islands. It is moving west at 15 to 20 mph, expected to approach the islands on Tuesday and then move into the southeastern Caribbean Sea on Wednesday and Thursday. Meteorologists speculate the system to become a tropical depression or storm in the next day or so.
The NHC gives the wave a 70% chance of developing in the next two days and a 90% chance in the next five. A NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft is scheduled to investigate the system Monday afternoon.
Also, tropical storm watches or warnings could be required for the Windward Islands and the northeastern coasts of Venezuela.
Next, a trough of low pressure has created an area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms from southeastern Louisiana across the northeastern Gulf of Mexico and the southern part of the Florida peninsula. The NHC gives it a 10% chance of forming into a tropical system in the next two days, or 20% in the next five days, as it slowly drifts west across the northern Gulf of Mexico.
Lastly, the NHC identified a tropical wave several hundred miles southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands, producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms. Atlantic conditions could become ripe enough for the system’s development into a tropical storm in the next several days. The NHC gave the wave a 20% chance of developing in the next five days.
If any of the systems develop, they would be the season’s second system after Tropical Storm Alex, which dumped nearly a foot of rain over parts of Florida earlier this month. The next named storm would become Tropical Storm Bonnie.
After Bonnie, the next two names would be Colin and Danielle.
A tropical system could be named a tropical depression without growing to tropical-storm status. It doesn’t become named until the system has sustained winds of 39 mph and isn’t named a hurricane until it has sustained winds of 74 mph.
The 2022 season runs from June 1-Nov. 30 is predicted to be another above-normal year for storms following the 30 named storms of 2020 and 21 of 2021.
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