ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The chances for a tropical depression to form in the Atlantic have increased to the point we'll probably expect it to form later Monday or Tuesday.
We are about three weeks into this year's hurricane season. Normally, early-season activity occurs in the Gulf of Mexico, the western Caribbean, or off the coast of the Carolinas.
But the National Hurricane Center is highlighting a wave that has drifted off the coast of Africa and is positioned in the central Atlantic Ocean. Right now, the tropical wave is located several hundred miles southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands and has a "near 100 percent" chance of development.
The system is expected to move westward across the eastern and central tropical Atlantic through the middle of the coming week.
The European weather model has been constantly showing this wave surviving as it moves across the eastern Atlantic, and now the American model is coming to an agreement.
This is nothing to worry about at this point. It will be over the open waters of the tropical Atlantic for about the next week or so. It won't start to get close to the Lesser Antilles by next weekend at the earliest.
So we are more than a week away from any land interaction, and most models keep the system weak and unorganized.
Still, it is something to watch in the tropics. We normally don't see development in this area until July into August. One thing that may help this system is the well above-average water temperatures in the tropical Atlantic off the coast of Africa.
If it does develop into a tropical storm, it would be the second named storm of the season, Bret. Arlene was the first named storm of the season from earlier in the month after developing in the Gulf of Mexico.