Area of Tropical Concern in Central Atlantic

There’s an area that’s increasingly likely to become a tropical depression or storm over the next few days. But, it’s well out to sea in the central Atlantic Ocean and not expected to threaten land.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) gives a tropical wave in the central Atlantic a moderate chance of development in the next five days, with lower odds of development in the next two. Currently, the tropical wave is 800-900 miles east of the northern Lesser Antilles islands, but it’s expected to turn north.

If the storm is named (it needs to be a tropical storm, with maximum sustained winds of 39 miles-per-hour or greater for it to be so), it would acquire the name of Oscar, the Atlantic season’s 15th named storm. Of those 14 named storms that we’ve already seen, seven have been hurricanes, making the 2018 season as a whole already slightly above the climatological average.

Again, this storm is not expected to threaten land, and it’ll likely peter out harmlessly over the north Atlantic, where it may sit and spin for a few days before slowly dissipating.

Elsewhere, there are no other tropical waves of concern in the Atlantic basin. In the eastern Pacific, Willa has dissipated over northern Mexico, and there are no other tropical waves of note at this point. That may change, as we’ve still got over a month left of hurricane season, which officially ends on November 30th in the Atlantic.

Stay with WeatherNation for the latest through the remainder of hurricane season.

For WeatherNation: Meteorologist Chris Bianchi