MIAMI – We are just days away from the statistical peak of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, and just as the week begins, things are heating up as the National Hurricane Center (NHC) monitors a third area of ​​severe weather.

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This new area emerged as meteorologists reduced the chances of an area of ​​showers and thunderstorms developing off the coast of Texas and Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico, bringing heavy rainfall to the region.

But now attention is turning to tropical disturbances that have formed in the Caribbean and the central and eastern Atlantic. However, in its updated tropical forecast on Tuesday afternoon, the NHC gave only a “low” probability of further development for all three disturbances.

The increase in tropical activity comes at an eerily quiet time in the Atlantic. There hasn’t been a named storm in the Atlantic since Ernesto on August 12.

“The last time there were no named storm formations in the Atlantic between August 13 and September 3 was in 1968,” said Phil Klotzbach, a senior scientist at Colorado State University, in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “The remarkably quiet period of hurricane activity in the Atlantic continues.”

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The first area of ​​concern is in the Caribbean, where scattered showers and thunderstorms will continue as the system continues its journey westward through the region.

The NHC said environmental conditions are expected to become more conducive to development as the system reaches the western Caribbean and southwestern Gulf of Mexico later this week and over the weekend, and that a tropical depression could form at that time.

However, confidence eased somewhat on Tuesday afternoon and forecasters now give the system a 30 percent chance of developing in the next seven days, 10 percent less than Tuesday morning’s forecast.

Confidence in the development also dropped slightly due to a tropical disturbance over the far eastern Atlantic Ocean that is producing a region of scattered rain showers and thunderstorms. According to the NHC, environmental conditions are expected to become somewhat more favorable for slow development over the next few days. This system, according to the NHC, could produce locally heavy rains and strong winds in parts of Cape Verde in a few days.

But now NHC meteorologists say the latest data shows conditions are likely to become less conducive to development by the end of the week, so they’ve also lowered the development probability for this disturbance by 10 percent – from 40 percent to 30 percent over the course of next week.

The NHC pointed out a new problem area in the central Atlantic on Tuesday morning.

The NHC said the tropical disturbance was located about halfway between the west coast of Africa and the Lesser Antilles and was causing intermittent showers and thunderstorms.

Slow development is possible over the next few days as the system moves west-northwest, but environmental conditions are likely to become unfavorable for further development by the end of the week.

The NHC gives the system a low probability of developing over the next seven days.

Source of the original article: Three tropical threats in the Atlantic: Peak of the hurricane season approaches