A tropical disturbance in the mid-Atlantic has an increasing chance of developing and approaching the Caribbean this week, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Forecasters increased their odds this weekend to a 50% chance of becoming a tropical depression in the next five days, with a 10% chance of that happening in the next two days.
On Monday morning, the system was located several hundred kilometers west of the Cape Verde Islands, in a dry air zone, which is not good for storm development. But the hurricane center expects it to continue moving west, where it could find better conditions within a few days.
If the system develops into a tropical depression or tropical storm, it could approach the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on Thursday or Friday.
From there, global supercomputer weather models offer a mixed bag of options: either straight west, through the Caribbean and through Dominica and Cuba, or slightly north, where it either approaches Florida and the Bahamas, or curves away from land altogether .
“In other words, we won’t know where it’s going until we know where it is when it reaches the islands in about four to five days. Stay tuned,” Royal Caribbean Chief Meteorologist Craig Setzer wrote on X.
