Another hurricane? Budding tropical disturbance in the Atlantic eyes the US

The National Hurricane Center said in its latest forecast Wednesday that there is a “medium” 40 percent chance of that happening, down from 50 percent the day before. A tropical storm is a potential precursor to a hurricane, which must have sustained winds of at least 75 mph and “well-defined” circulation.

While the disturbance is days away from possibly reaching the U.S., it will in the meantime bring heavy rain to portions of Central America and Cuba.

From there, an Accuweather forecast said the low-pressure system could swing through Florida on Saturday and then sweep across the East Coast of the U.S., bringing with it tropical rain, flash flooding, and gusty winds. Cities along the coast that are in its path include Washington, D.C. and New York.

While the future strength of the storm is unknown at this point, NHC scientist Eric Blake tweeted from his personal account, “Don’t sleep” on the disturbance, because even if it doesn’t form it could bring with it “big time rain impacts.”

This has been an above-average year in terms of hurricanes, with several landfalls being made over parts of the U.S. in the past few months. Hundreds of billions of estimated damage costs have been tied to storms that slammed Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and parts of the South and Southeast. Puerto Rico was particularly hard hit by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, and is still in the middle of an extensive recovery effort. The U.S. territory was already struggling with debt, but now faces up to $95 billion in costs from Hurricane Maria alone.

Tropical weather may be a threat to the Atlantic coast next week, with the Atlantic hurricane season not set to end until Nov. 30, but the upper Midwest is facing its first bout of accumulating snow in the next few days, according to Weather.com.

And though it may be late in the hurricane season, University of Miami meteorologist Brian McNoldy notes that some of the “most intense hurricanes ever recorded were born in the western Caribbean in late October.”