ORLANDO, Fla. — The National Hurricane Center expects a tropical wave to soon form off the coast of Africa in the far eastern Atlantic with a chance it could form into the season’s next tropical depression or storm.
In the NHC’s 2 p.m. EDT Thursday tropical outlook, forecasters show the system moving across the Atlantic and parked off the Leeward Islands headed into the Caribbean by next week.
“Environmental conditions are expected to be conducive for gradual development of this system while it moves generally westward to west-northwestward at 15 to 20 mph across the eastern and central tropical Atlantic during the early to middle part of next week,” according to the outlook.
The NHC gives the system a 20% chance of development in the next seven days.
If it develops it would become Tropical Depression Three and if it spins up to sustained winds of at least 39 mph it would become Tropical Storm Bret.
The NHC determined the year’s first storm was an unnamed subtropical storm in January, which was followed by the Tropical Storm Arlene the developed on the second day of the official 2023 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1-Nov. 30.
One of the drivers for hurricane development in the Atlantic is warmer oceans, and temperatures in the North Atlantic have risen higher than normal in the last few weeks, according to Phil Klotzback with Colorado State University’s Tropical Weather and Climate Research department.
“Considerable anomalous warming has taken place across the North Atlantic over the past couple of weeks, due to a much weaker-than-normal subtropical high and associated weaker trade winds blowing across the tropical and subtropical Atlantic,” he posted on Twitter.
That will face competition from the effects of a global El Niño climactic effect. which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said has already begun this year. It traditionally brings more wind shear over the Atlantic that would hinder tropical storm development.
The NOAA’s seasonal forecast released in May projects 2023 to be an average season with between 12 and 17 named storms. Of those, five to nine would grow into hurricanes, and of those one to three would reach major hurricane strength of 111 mph sustained winds or greater.
———
