Forecasters Warn: Storm In Atlantic Basin “Could Form Into Hurricane Over Weekend”

The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season is heating up and showing no signs of slowing down. A tropical wave in the Eastern Atlantic is likely to develop in the next couple of days and could form into a tropical storm by the weekend.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) reports Wednesday a disturbance located a few hundred miles south-southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands is becoming more organized. 

“Environmental conditions are expected to remain conducive for development, and a tropical depression is likely to form within the next couple of days. NHC said that this system is expected to move westward to west-northwestward across the tropical Atlantic during the next several days,” NHC said. 

The weather agency gives the collection of showers and thunderstorms an 80% of development over the next 48 hours and a 90% chance over the next five days. 

“There are some indications it could become a hurricane over the weekend,” Randy Adkins, a senior meteorologist at Accuweather, told Bloomberg. “It’s certainly one we’ll be watching. This is the kind of system we worry about.”

Models so far show the disturbance may hook right before Guadeloupe, an island group in the southern Caribbean Sea, to the US East Coast. 

Meteorologist Phil Klotzbach from Colorado State University pointed out last week that the “climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season” is here. He said, “so far this year, the Atlantic is running ~130-160% of normal for most parameters including named storms, hurricanes and Accumulated Cyclone Energy.”

Models and timing of the disturbance are subjected to change, and a better understanding of the system should come at the end of the week.