Atlantic basin gets busier as hurricane center identified 3rd disturbance
The Atlantic basin is getting busier as the National Hurricane Center identified Monday morning the third disturbance with odds of becoming the next tropical storm.
First, the NHC continues to monitor a tropical wave located over the central Atlantic, which has become better organized.
“Environmental conditions appear conducive for further development, and a tropical depression is likely to form during the early to the middle part of this week,” said U.S. Navy Hurricane Specialist Dave Roberts.
The wave is located about 950 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. The NHC considers it likely to become a tropical depression or storm before its arrival on the islands.
The NHC gives that system a 70% chance of forming into a tropical depression or storm 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. Tropical storm watches or warnings could be required for the Windward Islands and the northern coasts of Venezuela.
Meanwhile, 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 is expected to slowly drift 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.
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.
