Tropical update: Atlantic Basin awakens: watching 3 waves

We are monitoring three tropical disturbances in the Atlantic Basin that could develop this week or early next week.

The chance of the tropical wave entering the Caribbean continues to diminish. Nonetheless, heavy rains that could cause flooding across the Windward Islands are expected on Tuesday through Thursday.

This system will encounter an area of strong wind shear which will continue to limit the organization of Invest 95 AL. There's only a 10% chance of this tropical wave developing within the next seven days. This wave will bring rough seas across the northern coast of South Africa this week as it continues traveling west.

A weak area of low pressure is located in the south-southwest of Bermuda. This system continues to travel west-northwest and will continue to approach the southeastern United States late this week and into the weekend. The chance for development is about 10 percent as of Tuesday morning. This system continues to be very disorganized and deals with some moderate wind shear in the area which is hindering its short-term development.

Regardless of development, parts of the Southeast are expected to have an increase in tropical showers starting Friday. This could be a good thing, especially for South Florida where the heat has been extreme and heat advisories have been in effect continuously for more than 11 days.

A freshly emerged African tropical wave looks like it is the one that will have the higher odds for development. Of course, this wave is over 2000 miles away from the U.S., so there is plenty of time to watch it. It is currently located just south of Cabo Verde Islands and it has no chance to develop in the short term. This means that we will likely talk about this system for over 5 days before it even develops.

In the long range, by the middle of next week, this system should be closer to the Caribbean, specifically to its northeast, or close to the northern tear of the Lesser Antilles. Here is where conditions will become more favorable for tropical development.

We are coming into the busiest weeks and months of hurricane season. Just because there is an El Niño present doesn't mean that there won't be any storms developing. Remember that there are plenty of warm waters to sustain tropical development and it only takes one storm to make it a busy season for you.