Halloween is a week away and Thanksgiving is in a month yet officials with the National Hurricane Center still find themselves being kept busy by potential tropical trouble spots.

The latest area of concern is a poorly defined disturbance located in the waters of the central Atlantic Ocean. The area of showers and thunderstorms is about 800 miles east of the Leeward Islands. Forecasters with the Hurricane Center are giving this system a 50% chance of strengthening into a tropical cyclone over the next five days.

The current motion of the storm system is slowly to the north. Then forecasters expect a  more westerly turn toward the coast of the U.S. by late in the forecast period. No, that doesn't mean a landfall along the U.S. East Coast is imminent or even likely.

This storm system is well out at sea so any interaction with land won't be anytime soon, if ever. Many of the long-range forecast models suggest that the system, even if it does strengthen, will be pushed further out to sea over time and will likely remain a threat only to shipping concerns.

 

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