ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Hurricane season doesn’t end until Nov. 30, and a storm brewing in the Caribbean might prove why the season ends so late in the year.
The National Hurricane Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has begun tracking a storm system brewing a few hundred miles off the coast of Honduras. As of now, NOAA gives the system a greater than 90 percent chance of developing into a tropical storm within the next 48 hours.
Meteorologists from WESH 2 News in Orlando are predicting the storm, known currently as Invest 99-L, to strengthen in the coming days into a hurricane as it passes over the Yucatan Peninsula into the Gulf of Mexico. With sustained winds of 30 mph at 1 p.m., Invest 99-L was well on its way to developing, according to WESH.
Despite the falling leaves and temperatures in Western North Carolina, temperatures in the Caribbean Sea remain high. With 85-degree Fahrenheit water and low air pressure at 1007 millibars, a tropical storm is likely in the making.
The NHC reported at 1 p.m. EST, “Environmental conditions are conducive for development, and a tropical depression is likely to form within the next day or two while the system moves slowly westward into the western Caribbean Sea. Afterward, further development is likely while the disturbance meanders over the western Caribbean Sea through the weekend.”
Invest 99-L, according to computer models, is on a path toward the Florida Gulf Coast, where in the past two months two major hurricanes have hit: Helene and Milton. Recovery efforts from those storms could be impeded by the potential of a third tropical storm.
As a cold front moves southeast and the potential tropical storm travels northeast, the two weather phenomena will collide at some point in the coming days. Depending on the time of their interaction will in part determine where the new storm could make landfall.
It is too early to know if the storm will follow the trail of Hurricane Helene, however, some computer models are showing a similar route as a possibility.