ORLANDO, Fla. _ Tropical Storm Humberto will be the next named storm, and it could form from a tropical wave that is approaching the Caribbean in the next five days, or a new system that popped up even closer to Florida and the Bahamas.
The new system the National Hurricane Center said is a set of disorganized showers and thunderstorms a few hundred miles northeast of the northern Leeward Islands. Its five-day track could bring it over the lower Bahamas or to the east in the Atlantic.
The immediate threat of tropical depression formation is prevented by strong upper-level winds, but the NHC puts a 20% chance of that within five days.
"By mid week, environmental conditions could become more conducive for development when the disturbance reaches the southwestern Atlantic Ocean," the NHC said.
The system located farther away has been watched by the NHC all week. It's located several hundred miles west of the Cape Verde Islands, and is projected to be about 300 miles off the Leeward Islands in five days, which was a little closer than Hurricane Dorian when it became a tropical depression. The National Hurricane Center said the tropical wave is producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms.
"Some slow development of this system is possible during the next several days while the low moves westward across the central tropical Atlantic Ocean." the NHC said in its 2 a.m. advisory.
It puts the chances that this system becomes a tropical depression at 10% in the next 48 hours and 40% in the next five days.
Hurricane Dorian has now devolved into Post-Tropical Cyclone Dorian, but still with 80 mph winds as of 8 a.m. Sunday, located over Atlantic Canada while Tropical Storm Gabrielle spins with 60 mph winds over the central Atlantic Ocean with a five-day track that could have it threatening Ireland and Scotland.
If either one of the tropical wave investigations become a tropical depression, it would be the 9th depression of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season. If it then grows to maintain at least 39 mph sustained winds, it would become Tropical Storm Humberto.
Hurricane Dorian grew into depression strength about 800 miles east of the Leeward Islands back on Aug. 24. It then passed over the U.S. Virgin Islands as a tropical storm on Aug. 28 and took aim at The Bahamas growing into a powerful Category 5 hurricane with 185 mph sustained winds that left at least 43 dead in the Bahamas as it passed over Great Abaco and Grand Bahama Island last Sunday-Tuesday.
The storm has since skirted Florida's coast, then headed up the U.S. East Coast spawning tornadoes and making landfall again over the Outer Banks of North Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane on Friday and then up past New England and into eastern Canada making landfall near Halifax, Nova Scotia on Saturday.
The hurricane season typically peaks between mid-August and late October.
In 2004, Florida saw four hurricanes strike between August and September when Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne pummeled the state in short order.
