Hurricane center eyes 2 systems with tropical potential

The National Hurricane Center continued Friday to keep busy with two systems that could develop into the season’s next tropical depression or storm.

As of the NHC’s 8 p.m. tropical outlook, the most likely was a tropical wave over Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico with disorganized showers and thunderstorms.

“The wave is forecast to move over the Bay of Campeche on Saturday, where it could then begin to interact with a frontal boundary,” forecasters said. “A tropical depression could form during the early or middle part of next week while the system moves slowly northwestward over the southwestern Gulf of Mexico.”

The NHC gives it a 30% chance to develop in the next two days and 50% in the next seven.

If it were to develop into a named system, it could become Tropical Storm Francine.

The NHC was also following an elongated trough of low pressure over the eastern and central tropical Atlantic with broad shower and thunderstorm activity.

A more concentrated area of low pressure may form within this region during the next couple of days,” forecasters said. “Any development of this system should be slow to occur while the disturbance meanders through the early part of next week and then begins to move west-northwestward across the central tropical Atlantic during the middle to latter part of next week.”

The NHC gives it only a 20% chance of development in the next seven days.

Earlier Friday, the NHC had been tracking two more systems — one in the Gulf Coast dropping rain from Texas to the Florida Panhandle and another heading north in the Atlantic off the U.S. East Coast, but dropped chances they could develop to 0% by the afternoon.

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season had a busy start producing five named storms so far, but has not produced any other named systems since Hurricane Ernesto dissipated on Aug. 20.

The season runs from June 1-Nov. 30, with the traditional height of storm production running from mid-August into October.