There are systems to watch, but nothing will happen quickly

The first tropical depression in a month has a fair chance of eventually forming out of Tropical Disturbance #2, which has crossed the African coastline and is now over the Atlantic waters. The good-sized disturbance has plenty of moisture to work with, and it appears there will be a gap in the Saharan Dust, which may give it an opportunity to organize over the weekend or early next week.

The current thinking is that the system, whatever status it has, will eventually pull in some dusty air or otherwise run into problems before becoming very strong. But with all these undeveloped disturbances, it’s important to remember that all forecasts for weak, drifting, or just-developing systems are iffy and subject to change. So it wouldn’t be surprising if something different than the current expectation were to happen.

With that in mind, the atmospheric conditions for the next few days do seem somewhat conducive for the system to become a depression or perhaps a tropical storm.

The steering currents are pretty weak right now, so it is not going anywhere fast. It’s just something to keep an eye on. Well into next week, it’s expected to still be far out in the tropical Atlantic.

The National Hurricane Center is also making note of Tropical Disturbance #1, a very broad area of slightly disturbed weather in the Atlantic about 1,000 miles east of the Caribbean. Some computer forecast models suggest it might develop a bit as it heads in the general direction of the northeastern-most islands, but the chances appear low at the current time.

Most likely, the system will move through the islands and head in the general direction of Florida as a typical moisture surge.

There are other minor disturbances in the tropical Atlantic south of the plume of Saharan dust that dominated the atmosphere through July. The computer forecast models have trouble distinguishing one disturbance from the other at times, so until something congeals into a well-defined system, the forecasts are going to jump around and be generally unreliable.

Nothing of concern appears imminent, although we’ll have to keep an eye on Disturbance #1 until there is no chance of it becoming a problem since it’s the closest to any land.