Amid quiet hurricane season, forecasters eye potential depression

Hurricane forecasters are keeping an eye on three potential storms in the Atlantic Ocean and one in the Caribbean Sea, though risks appear slight for all but one.

They’re tracking a broad low pressure area, now hanging over the central tropical Atlantic. It hasn’t yet gathered into a storm, according to the National Hurricane Center in its 2 p.m. advisory Sunday. But rain and thunderstorms are picking up, and researchers said a tropical depression will likely form.

Within five days, they said, this disturbance has a 80% chance of developing into a cyclone.

They said the system will move west, then northwest, toward the Leeward Islands.

The three other disturbances researchers are watching pose little threat so far.

Elsewhere in the central Atlantic, a small low pressure system 600 miles east of Bermuda is producing occasional showers. The hurricane center said it is likely to dissipate by midweek, with a 10% chance of formation in the next 48 hours and a 10% chance of formation by the end of the week.

Also in the Atlantic, a tropical wave is forecast to move off the west coast of Africa Monday or Monday night. As it moves westward, there is about a 10 percent chance the storm will develop in the next 48 hours and about a 30% chance of formation by the end of the week, according to the advisory.

The center is also watching for a potential trough of low pressure over the northwestern Caribbean Sea and toward the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico during the middle part of this week. But formation chance in the next two days remains near zero, and chances remain low throughout the week.

Despite a relatively quiet start to hurricane season, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agency announced in early August it is still expecting an above-normal hurricane season with 14 to 20 named storms this year.