Tropical depression likely to form this week from system moving toward Caribbean

A tropical depression is “likely to form” by late this week from a system expected to move west generally toward the Caribbean, forecasters said Monday.

That system, which emerged off Africa on Wednesday saw its chances to develop drop, to a 30% chance in the next two days and a 70% chance in the next seven days, according to the National Hurricane Center’s 8 a.m. advisory.

Odds were higher in earlier forecasts Sunday, in which the potential formation of a tropical storm this week was mentioned. The latest advisory still remains confident in the system’s development. But for now forecasters said the system had become less organized than it had been previously.

Meanwhile, the former Tropical Storm Sean was downgraded to a remnant low late Sunday. Sean, located in the central tropical Atlantic, is forecast to dissipate late Monday or Tuesday.

So far this season in the Atlantic, there have been 18 named storms, six of which were hurricanes. Of those, three were major hurricanes, meaning Category 3 or above.

Those were Hurricane Lee, a rare Category 5; Hurricane Franklin, a Category 4; and Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall on Florida’s Big Bend region at Category 3 strength on Aug. 30.

The remaining storm names for 2023 are Tammy, Vince and Whitney. If all those names end up being used this season, the National Hurricane Center would turn to the Greek alphabet for additional storm names — starting with Alpha, Beta and Gamma. This has only ever happened twice before — during the record-shattering  hurricane seasons in 2020 and 2005.

Hurricane season officially runs through Nov. 30.