Hurricane Center Eyeing Tropical Wave For Further Development

A vigorous tropical wave rolled off the African continent this past weekend and is now being watched for further development by the National Hurricane Center. Earlier in the week forecasters were not giving this system much of a chance to strengthen. It seems as though conditions in and around the system have changed and those changes could mean the possibility of a tropical cyclone.

For the near term this system is just a mild concern. It's just off the coast of Africa and would be at least four or five days away from any interaction with even the outer most islands of the eastern Caribbean.

However, any system that forms at a latitude as low as this one has formed bears watching for the southeast coast of the United States and the Gulf of Mexico. Current forecast models suggest that the system will move in a northwesterly track. Should that track continue this would most likely be an open Atlantic storm.

Forecasters do expect the system to continue to get stronger over the next five days. There is a 70% probability that conditions will remain favorable for the tropical wave to become a named storm or a tropical depression.  Should this system receive a name it would be known as Fiona.