We are, once again, monitoring two disturbances in the Tropical Atlantic for development chances.

One tropical wave has just emerged off the coast of Africa. It has a low (20%) chance of formation over the next seven days. As of now, the vast majority of models that develop this system eventually turn it north and away from most landmasses.

Meanwhile, the odds of development for our central Atlantic tropical wave approaching the Lesser Antilles have increased. The National Hurricane Center has given this disturbance a medium (50%) chance of development over the next week.

There is increasing model agreement that this will slowly organize as it reaches the Caribbean and could become a tropical depression by early next week. It is too early to accurately speculate on what the long-range track of this system would be.

Ever since Hurricane Ernesto, there has been a quiet stretch of inactivity across the North Atlantic. This period is forecast to extend into September as no new named storms are expected to form over the next seven days.

A driving factor of this is how plumes of Saharan dust are continuing to get swept across the Tropical Atlantic, effectively drying out most disturbances before they can show signs of development.

Additionally, tropical waves (the seeds of tropical storms and hurricanes) are encountering relatively cool sea surface temperatures off the coast of Africa. This contrasts the abnormally warm waters to their west that they are struggling to reach.

It’s important to note that we have over two-thirds of our hurricane season to go, and long-term signals are still pointing toward an active season. September 10th marks the climatological peak of the season, with the month of September historically producing more U.S. land-falling storms than any other month.