The deep tropics from the Caribbean across the Atlantic to Africa are about as hostile to tropical development as you're ever going to see during a hurricane season. There's a fire hose of upper-level winds from Central America almost to Africa. This on its own would normally prohibit tropical systems from developing. In addition, the Atlantic east of the islands is unusually cool, too cool to power tropical systems. And the Saharan dust machine is kicking in. Winds over th

A low-pressure system – technically called a frontal wave – has formed on schedule along the cold front that stalled offshore of the Carolinas. You see it in the satellite picture as a bulge along the front. There's clearly some circulation with the system. The upper-level winds are forecast to be marginally conducive for the system to develop into a tropical depression or low-end tropical storm over the next day or two, but that process normally takes time, so the odds are