Tropical Wave Could Be Next Tropical Depression

After a relatively quiet peak day of hurricane season, we now have our eyes on an area coming off the west coast of Africa for possible tropical development.

The National Hurricane Center is monitoring this system closely as the odds continue to increase for development middle of next week.

Here's What You Need To Know

The area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms is currently located near the west coast of Africa, where it will then track into the Atlantic.

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While conditions across much of the Atlantic have been stable due in large part to a high-pressure system, this storm could find pockets of more favorable conditions and could try to get its act together.

This system could become a tropical depression by the middle of next week, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Models vary wildly as this area is in its infancy, but some models say this storm could get a name by next week.

Again, it is too early to say anything with certainty, but we are still waiting on the potential future Gabrielle.

What’s Been Going On?

If you are wondering if this hurricane season has been relatively quiet, you are not wrong. It has been.

Despite warm waters across the Atlantic, sinking air, wind shear and dry air have been stuffing out most storms.

The only real exception to this is Hurricane Erin, which took advantage of a brief period of low shear and less dry air to grow from a Category 1 to a Category 5 hurricane in just over 24 hours. This shows that having warm oceans is just a piece of the hurricane pie.

Would you believe the last named storm was back at the end of August? Tropical Storm Fernand has that honor, fizzling out at the end of August.

In fact, "below average" has been the name of the game for 2025 so far. We should have seen eight named storms by this time. We are only at six.

For hurricanes, we should have seen three, but Erin stands alone at this time. However, since Erin reached major hurricane strength, we are average for the number of major hurricanes expected at this time.

What Does This Mean Going Forward?

Just because hurricane season hasn’t lived up to the hype so far, that doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet.

Last year, hurricanes Helene and Milton occurred after peak hurricane season, and we all still remember the devastation these storms caused.

Only two years have not seen a named storm in September: 1879 and 1890.

However, I doubt this will happen. This storm could be the start of the Atlantic Basin beginning to wake up.

Rob Shackelford is a meteorologist and climate scientist at weather.com. He received his undergraduate and master’s degree from the University of Georgia studying meteorology and experimenting with alternative hurricane forecasting tools.