The National Hurricane Center says it is now likely that a tropical storm will form well off shore the Delaware and Maryland coasts within the next 48 hours. In addition to this developing tropical cyclone, the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida is monitoring two other areas of concern within the Atlantic Hurricane Basin.

Showers and thunderstorms have increased in association with a non-tropical area of low pressure located a few hundred miles east of the North Carolina coast. While satellite wind data show that the low is now producing gale-force winds, the system remains attached to a frontal boundary. However, according to the National Hurricane Center, environmental conditions are conducive for this system to acquire additional tropical characteristics, and a tropical storm is likely to form by Monday. This would happen well east of the Mid Atlantic coast, likely due east of Maryland or Delaware.  The National Hurricane Center believes there’s a 70% chance this will happen within the next 48 hours.

Even if it does develop into a named storm, it should not bring any direct impacts to the U.S. East Coast.

Off the Southeastern United States, there’s another  area of low pressure that the could form in a couple of days a few hundred
miles southeast of the Carolinas.  According to the National Hurricane Center, some gradual development of this system is possible by midweek as the system drifts to the northwest. But of the three areas they’re tracking, this is the least likely to develop with only a 20% chance of tropical cyclone formation over the next 7 days.

The third area of concern is a tropical wave which is  forecast to move off the west coast of Africa by late Monday. Thereafter, some gradual development of the wave is possible, and a tropical depression could form late this week while it moves generally west-northwestward across the central tropical Atlantic. For this disturbance, the National Hurricane Center says there’s a 40% chance that a tropical cyclone will form here.