Tropical depression could form in Atlantic later this week
A tropical wave expected to emerge off Africa now has a 50% chance of developing, and a tropical depression could form later this week as it moves across the Atlantic, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
The wave is expected to move off the west coast of Africa on Tuesday. Environmental conditions are forecast to support gradual development as it moves west to west-northwest across the central tropical Atlantic.
The NHC raised the system’s seven-day formation chance from 30% on Saturday to 50% on Sunday, moving it from a low to medium chance of development. Formation is not expected during the next 48 hours.
Forecasters are also monitoring a broad area of showers and thunderstorms several hundred miles west-southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands.
That system has a 20% chance of developing during the next seven days as it moves west across the central tropical Atlantic.
Some gradual development is possible during the early or middle part of the week, but upper-level winds are expected to become less favorable as the system approaches the Lesser Antilles later in the week.
The systems are the first of the season to be monitored in the tropical Atlantic between Africa and the Caribbean, a region that becomes increasingly active as hurricane season approaches its climatological peak in early September.
Tropical waves that develop near the Cabo Verde Islands have a long stretch of warm ocean over which they can strengthen, sometimes becoming powerful, long-lived hurricanes before approaching the Caribbean or North America.
The 2026 season has so far produced Tropical Storms Arthur and Bertha, both of which formed in the Gulf.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
