Hurricane watchers are nervously watching the waters off French Guiana, where falling atmospheric pressure threatens to generate a storm surge that could wreak havoc along the entire southeastern coast.
At least eight people were killed and more than 2.7 million were left without power when Hurricane Beryl swept through Texas and the Mississippi Valley earlier this month.
And after weeks of relative calm, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned that its successor, named Debby, could be brewing east of the Lesser Antilles.
“Chances of tropical development have increased to 40 percent in seven days,” the Texas Storm Chasers tweeted.
“People anywhere along the Florida coast should be on the lookout for this. August looks like a busy month, as usual!”
The probability of the low developing into a storm has increased from 10 to 40% in two days.
Where it makes landfall will depend on two high pressure systems over Bermuda and the Plains.
The NHC first sounded the alarm on Friday after detecting the tropical disturbance and seeing that it would likely collide with an approaching tropical wave.
The chances of it developing have nearly tripled since then, with Weather Jamaica issuing a code orange and warning that “Debby is imminent.”
Forecast maps show the storm moving across the Caribbean and Florida if it develops, but warn it could make landfall anywhere in the Gulf of Mexico or the Carolinas.
A large area of high pressure near Bermuda could force it toward Texas, while another over the southern Plains could force it up the East Coast.
“The tropics are waking up!” WJBF meteorologist Miller Hyatt tweeted.
‘A disturbance is brewing in the central Atlantic, but will it become our next named storm, Debby?
‘Saharan dust is slowing development for now, but things could change next week.’
Debby would be only the fourth named storm or hurricane of the 2024 season that began with Storm Alberto in June.
Beryl became the earliest-forming Category 5 hurricane on record, carving a destructive path through 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 moved through the area in Galveston, Texas, July 8, 2024.
It had weakened to a Category 1 by the time it hit Texas, but it still dumped up to 14 inches of rain in a state still recovering from May storms that killed eight people, left nearly a million without power and flooded thousands of streets.
It spawned 16 known tornadoes across the state, killing a 53-year-old man in Humble after an oak tree fell on his home with the man and his family inside, and a 74-year-old woman when a tree fell on her bedroom in Ponderosa Forest north of Houston.
The NHC said there was a medium chance the latest disturbance would become Debby, but that chances had increased over the weekend.
“Environmental conditions are forecast to become conducive for some development in the next day or two, and a tropical depression could form around midweek while the system is near or over the northern Leeward Islands, the Greater Antilles, or the southwestern Atlantic Ocean,” it said Sunday.
Fox Weather’s Michael Estime said unusual conditions may have helped protect the Caribbean so far this year.
“Now that things are starting to calm down again in terms of Saharan dust, that’s going to increase,” he added.
“So we’re not going to have all that dust in the atmosphere to block and shield some of the sun.”