Hurricane watchers are anxiously watching the waters off French Guiana. The sharp drop in air pressure is threatening to create a storm that could wreak havoc on the southeast coast.
At least eight people were killed and more than 2.7 million were left without power when Hurricane Beryl tore through Texas and the Mississippi Valley earlier this month.
And after weeks of relative calm, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) has warned that its successor, named Debby, may be looming east of the Lesser Antilles.
“The chance of tropical development within 7 days has increased to 40 percent,” the Texas Storm Chasers tweeted.
“People along the Florida coastline should keep an eye on this. August looks busy, as it often is!”
The chance of the low pressure becoming a storm has increased from 10 to 40% in two days
Where it reaches land depends on two high pressure areas over Bermuda and the Plains
The NHC first sounded the alarm on Friday after noticing the tropical disturbance and determining that it was likely to collide with an approaching tropical wave.
The chances of it developing have nearly tripled since then, with Weather Jamaica issuing a code orange warning that ‘Debby is imminent’.
Forecast maps indicate that the storm will move across the Caribbean and Florida as it develops, but warnings are that it could make landfall anywhere in the Gulf of Mexico or the Carolinas.
A large area of high pressure near Bermuda could force the storm toward Texas, while another area over the southern Plains could force the storm toward the East Coast.
“The tropics are awakening!” tweeted WJBF weatherman Miller Hyatt.
‘There’s a disturbance brewing in the central Atlantic, but will this be our next named storm, Debby?
‘Saharan dust is currently slowing down development, but that could change next week.’
Debby would be only the fourth named storm or hurricane in the 2024 season, which began in June with Storm Alberto.
Beryl was the first Category 5 hurricane to form and left a path of destruction across Jamaica, Grenada, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
Debris and floodwaters from Hurricane Beryl cover the main road in Surfside Beach, Texas on July 8, 2024
A contractor inspects a Dallas client’s home for structural damage after Hurricane Beryl tore through the area in Galveston, Texas on July 8, 2024.
By the time the storm reached Texas, rainfall had dropped to Category 1. Still, 14 inches of rain fell on the state, which was still recovering from May’s storms that killed eight people, left nearly 1 million without power and flooded thousands of streets.
The tornado spawned 16 known tornadoes in the state, killing a 53-year-old man in Humble after an oak tree fell on the home the man and his family were in, and a 74-year-old woman when a tree fell on her room in Ponderosa Forest, north of Houston.
According to the NHC, the chance that Debby will become the new disturbance is small, but that chance has increased over the weekend.
“Weather conditions are expected to be conducive to some development within a day or two. A tropical depression could form by midweek while the system is near or over the northern Leeward Islands, the Greater Antilles, or the southwestern Atlantic Ocean,” the report said Sunday.
According to Michael Estime of Fox Weather, this year’s unusual conditions may have helped protect the Caribbean.
“Now that the Sahara dust situation is starting to calm down a bit, that will become a problem,” he added.
“So we don’t have all that dust in the atmosphere blocking and protecting part of the sun.”