Hurricane center tracks system that could threaten Florida while hurricanes Lisa and Martin break apart

The National Hurricane Center continued to send advisories as now former hurricanes Lisa and Martin as they lost power Thursday, but also kept tabs on two more systems with potential to become the season’s next tropical depression or storm. One could threaten Florida.

It would come from a large nontropical low pressure system that is expected to develop over the weekend in the northeastern Caribbean sea and southwestern Atlantic, but could find its way over the Bahamas and off the coast of Florida by next week.

“The system is expected to initially be very broad and disorganized, but environmental conditions could support gradual subtropical or tropical development beginning early next week while it moves generally northward or northwestward,” forecasters said.

As of 8 p.m. Thursday, the NHC gives it a 30% chance to form in the next five days.

Space Launch Delta 45′s Weather Squadron Launch Officer Mark Burger is also keeping an eye on the system as a potential threat to NASA’s Artemis I mission and the $4.1 billion worth of hardware that will be sitting on Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-B next week waiting for a mid-November launch attempt.

“There’s still a lot of inconsistencies on exactly where that may end up and really whether or not it even does acquire any significant tropical characteristics to even become a named storm. That’s all very much out in play at this point,” he said. “However, that being said, the models are very consistent on developing some sort of a low pressure and regardless of whether or not it’s named, pretty much what we’re targeting, is that for the middle part of next week, especially as we go Monday night, potentially Tuesday night, early Wednesday, us having the highest impacts from that particular system as it approaches the Florida peninsula.”

He said it looks like at worst it could bring sustained winds of 25-30 mph with gusts approaching 45 mph.

“Those were well within our constraints of riding out, so we’ll have impacts from that in terms of the wind, but again, we’re not looking at any likelihood at this point of being a strong system emerge out of this,” he said. “However, again, we are continuing to watch that for potential impact in the middle of next week.”

The other system is farther north, a disorganized set of showers and thunderstorms associated with a weak nontropical low pressure system a few hundred miles east of Bermuda.

“Any tropical or subtropical development of this disturbance should be slow to occur during the next couple of days while it moves little through Friday and then turns westward over the weekend,” forecasters said. “The system is forecast to merge with a larger low pressure area developing to its southwest by the end of the weekend, and further development is not anticipated once this occurs.”

The NHC gives it a 10% chance for development in the next two to five days.

If either system grows into a tropical storm, the next names are Nicole and Owen.

Meanwhile, what is now downgraded to Tropical Depression Lisa, which made landfall in Belize after forming into a hurricane on Wednesday in the Caribbean, moved into southeastern Mexico overnight.

As of 5 p.m., the center of the storm was inland about 45 miles southwest of Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico with maximum sustained winds of 30 mph moving west at 12 mph.

All tropical storm watches and warnings have ended, and rainfall is expected to continue to diminish overnight.

In the northern Atlantic, Hurricane Martin became Post-Tropical Cyclone Martin by 5 p.m. located about 940 miles north-northwest of the Azores islands, still with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, but jetting across the Atlantic to the north-northeast at 58 mph. Hurricane-force winds still extend out up to 70 miles and tropical-storm-force winds extend out up to 520 miles.

“A slower northward to north-northwestward motion is expected Thursday night, followed by a much slower turn toward the east on Friday. An eastward to east-southeastward motion is then anticipated into the weekend,” forecasters said. “Martin’s peak sustained winds will slowly decrease over the next few days, but it will continue to produce strong winds over a very large area well into the weekend.”

Its five-day forecast has it bringing post-tropical-cyclone-force winds off the coast of Ireland and Great Britain by Monday.

Since the system transitioned from tropical to post-tropical, the NHC stopped issuing advisories on it.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs through Nov. 30. The season’s 14 named systems through Martin have now met the NOAA forecast for 2022.

The NOAA has predicted to be an above average season with 14 to 21 named tropical storms. This follows 2020′s record 30 named systems and 2021′s 21 named storms.