Watching the tropics

Tropical Update: Hey everyone, here's my tropical update for Sunday afternoon, no surprise here, but we now have 3 areas of concern for Tropical Development. I'll walk you through each one below with the best information I have and everything you need to know. I know people's nerves are running high, and folks in the mountains are scared. Please, everyone, take a deep breath and just hang in there. Peak hurricane season is over the next 60 days, and we will likely be watching many systems like usual. However, remember that each system will not hit North Carolina, but as usual, we will watch each system until it is history. If you're a longtime follower, you know if I am worried, I will tell you, if I am not, I won't say anything. To the new followers, thank you for trusting me to get you through Hurricane season.

Area #1: This is located a few hundred miles east of the Outer Banks, a low-pressure system has developed from an old front and has a pretty good chance of becoming a Tropical Storm or Depression tonight into Monday. The good news is that this system is moving away from North Carolina and the United States, and will only bring some high surf and rip currents to NC.

Area #2: This is a new area that the National Hurricane Center marked this afternoon, but I can see why. It is also related to the same front that area #1 is with. An area of low pressure could form in a couple of days, a few hundred miles southeast of North and South Carolina. This system will drift around near the Gulf Stream over the next few days; models don't really have a good handle on it. At the very least, it'll bring some increased rainfall to the coast later this week, but we will also need to watch to see if something tries to form. Nothing to really worry about right now, but we will watch it over the coming days.

Area #3: This is in the Tropical Atlantic Main Development Region (MDR): A tropical wave is forecast to move off the west coast of Africa by late Monday, which is of course, getting a lot of attention, but at this time some gradual development is possible as it moves west to northwestward across the tropcial Atlantic. After that, no one has a clue where it'll go or what will happen, as that's more than 10 days away. So, I know there are some viral TikToks videos going around about a major hurricane hitting the East coast from this wave, but let's be clear folks, no one knows where or what will happen with it. We will watch it as usual, but there's nothing to panic about right now.

The Bottom Line: There are 3 areas of to watch for tropical development, nothing too concerning right now, but I will keep an eye on all of them like normal. No reason to cancel beach plans or anything like that; just go on with your lives. Keep an eye out for updates over the next few days, and as new data comes in, I'll have new forecasts. We're in Hurricane season, be prepared and have a plan in place, and all will be fine!

Have a good Sunday evening.

-Ethan