We’ve been watching a robust tropical wave that rolled off the coast of Africa a couple days ago. Typically this isn’t an area that we’re looking at for development this early in the season, as water temperatures usually aren’t warm enough yet. However, this year there are near-record warm water temperatures in this part of the Atlantic.

There isn’t much working against the development of this system over the next several days, and it’s likely that at the very least a tropical depression forms sometime during the first half of next week. The good news is that the long term threat for any part of the U.S. coastline is extremely low right now. This system will either make an early turn up into the North Atlantic, or get eaten up by high wind shear across the Caribbean. It’s something to watch, but there’s certainly no cause for concern right now.

The next name on the list is Bret.