The National Hurricane Center continues to keep tabs on a tropical wave that has a chance to become the season’s next tropical depression or storm while also tracking Tropical Storm Don in the Atlantic.
As of the NHC’s 8 a.m. tropical advisory, the wave was located a few hundred miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands interacting with the Intertropical Convergence Zone where weather systems from the northern and southern hemisphere mix amid low pressure around the equator.
“The combination of these features is producing an elongated area of showers and thunderstorms over the eastern and central tropical Atlantic,” the NHC said. “While dry air to the north may prevent significant organization during the next couple of days,environmental conditions could become more conducive for some development this weekend as the system moves westward across the central tropical Atlantic.”
Forecasters give the system a 20% chance to form into a depression or storm in the next seven days.
If it were to become a named system, it would become Tropical Storm Emily.
Meanwhile to the north, Tropical Storm Don continues to grow in strength, although still no threat to land.
In its 5 a.m. advisory, the NHC said the system’s sustained winds had grown to 50 mph with higher gusts with tropcial-storm-force winds extending out 70 miles.
Its center was 855 miles west-southwest of the Azores moving west-northwest at 7 mph.
“Slight strengthening is expected during the next day or so, followed by little change in strength through Saturday,” forecasters said.
Its five-day path has it continuing northwest until a northward turn over the weekend when it’s expected to swing back to the east as it moves into colder waters and loses its tropical characteristics.
The storm began last Friday as Subtropical Storm Don before losing power to becoming Subtropical Depression Don, then finding tighter circulation as it moved south and becoming Tropical Depression Don this week and gaining enough strength Tuesday to become Tropical Storm Don.
It’s the fourth named storm of the season after a busy June that saw three tropical storms form.
The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1-Nov. 30.
