All eyes on the tropics: 3 tropical waves form

Published 4:08 pm Thursday, August 20, 2020

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All eyes are on the tropics as three tropical waves are getting attention.

The National Hurricane Center is monitoring three tropical waves whose trajectory is unknown.

Still, two of them have the potential to hit the United States.

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The third is still a cluster of storms still over Africa.

Forecasters say it’s too early to tell if any or all of the systems will cause any effects on the U.S. Mainland.

One of the waves is in the eastern Caribbean and is currently head west.

The NHC forecasts the wave will potentially slow down beginning today in the central Caribbean and then become organized.

Forecasters say that a tropical depression is likely to form later this week as the tropical system travels into the northwest Caribbean.

It could become Laura. The next three names on the annual list are Laura, Marco and Nana.

The second system is in the central Atlantic Ocean more than 1,000 miles east of the Windward Islands at press time.

NHC said that conditions are expected to intensify and a tropical depression is possible in the next day or two as the system continue to trek toward the west-northwest.

Finally, the third system hasn’t made its way over water as of yet.

At press time Wednesday, it was still positioned over west Africa  as something the NHC was calling a “vigorous tropical wave.”

The system is expected to hit the eastern Atlantic Ocean by Friday and could develop over the upcoming weekend.

But conditions may turn less favorable by the beginning of next week, and the chance of a tropical depression forming was 30 percent as of Wednesday afternoon.

There have been 11 named storms and two hurricanes so far this season, and up to 25 named storms are not out of the question before the season ends on Nov. 30, according to NOAA’s most recent hurricane season forecast.