THE TAKEAWAY
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is monitoring two areas for potential tropical development in the Atlantic amid a quiet start to the hurricane season impeded by a strengthening El Niñoclimate pattern as well as plumes of dust from North Africa's Saharan Desert.
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According to NOAA, El Niño could reach historic strength later this year — El Niño typically limits hurricane development in the Atlantic due to hostile winds that usually blow over the Caribbean and parts of the Atlantic Ocean. Calm conditions are generally more conducive to hurricane formation.
EL NIÑO INTENSIFIES PUERTO RICO'S RECORD DROUGHT AND WATER CRISIS
A strong tropical wave has moved off the coast of Africa — essentially a westward moving area of showers and thunderstorms — which forecasters think could strengthen into a tropical depression or storm over the next week.
That storm has been designated Invest 96L. The term "invest" is used every hurricane season in the Atlantic and the Eastern and Central Pacific basins, accompanied by a number from 90 to 99 and either the suffix "L," "E" or "C," respectively.
It's being given medium odds of developing over the next seven days over a broad area of open ocean between Cabo Verde and the Caribbean, according to the NHC.
"Many of the computer simulations that show it surviving its encounter with the dust and hostile upper winds predict it will turn into a hurricane as it heads north of the Caribbean," FOX Weather Hurricane Specialist Bryan Norcross said.
LATEST FROM FOX WEATHER HURRICANE SPECIALIST BRYAN NORCROSS
"That wouldn't be until next week, so it's nothing to think too hard about at this point."
If a tropical system does emerge, both Bermuda and the northeastern Caribbean islands would be the first areas threatened.
Meanwhile, a broad area of low pressure a few hundred miles east-southeast of Bermuda has been tagged as Invest 95L.
Invest 95L is being given medium odds of developing over the next two days and would remain well out to see as it moves north,.
WHAT IS AN INVEST DURING HURRICANE SEASON?
If this system does become a tropical depression, it will be named Dolly.
Regardless of development, this system could bring rain to Newfoundland, Canada sometime Tuesday.
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