Hurricane center tracks Caribbean, Atlantic systems

The National Hurricane Center is tracking two systems with a low chance of developing into the season’s next tropical depression or storm.

One is located in the central Caribbean sea, a small area of low pressure with increased shower and thunderstorm activity.

“However, environmental dry air is still likely to prevent significant development of this system as it begins to drift slowly westward later this week,” forecasters said.

The NHC gives it a 10% chance of formation in the next two to seven days.

Then deep in the central subtropical Atlantic is where a nontropical area of low pressure is forecast to develop along a front over the central portion of the Atlantic basin the next couple of days.

“Thereafter, environmental conditions appear somewhat conducive for this system to gradually acquire some subtropical or tropical characteristics during the latter part of this week while it moves generally eastward across the central subtropical Atlantic,” forecasters said.

The NHC gives it a 10% chance to develop in the next two days and a 40% chance in the next seven days.

The official Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1-Nov. 30, although storms that form outside of that six-month window within the calendar year are counted toward the 2023 total, which has seen 21 tracked systems.

That includes an unnamed subtropical storm in January and 20 systems since June 1. Of those, 19 have spun up to tropical storm level and become named storms. Seven of those became hurricanes, of which three became major hurricanes, including Hurricane Idalia that struck Florida in August.

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