National Hurricane Center Issues Warning on Potential Tropical Storm Nadine

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) began issuing official advisories on Potential Tropical Cyclone 15, previously known as AL95, on Friday afternoon.

The NHC has been monitoring the system, which has potential to intensify into Tropical Storm Nadine this week. The system’s chances of formation have gradually been strengthening, and as of Friday afternoon, the system had a 70 percent chance in the next 48 hours.

Potential Tropical Cyclone 15 is in the northwestern Caribbean Sea, with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph and is moving west-northwestward at 7 mph.

“Widespread showers and thunderstorms have become a little better organized today across the northwestern Caribbean Sea in association with a broad area of low pressure that is gradually becoming better defined to the north of eastern Honduras,” the most recent update from the NHC said. “Environmental conditions appear conducive for some additional development over the next day or so, and a short-lived tropical depression or storm could form before the system moves inland over Central America on Saturday.”

“Interests in Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico should monitor the progress of this system, as tropical storm watches or warnings may be required later today,” the update continued. “Regardless of development, locally heavy rainfall is likely across portions of Central America and southern Mexico through the weekend.”

If it develops, the storm will be named Nadine. AccuWeather senior meteorologist Alyson Hoegg told Newsweek that she expects the storm to ramp up into a tropical storm by the time it makes landfall in Belize around midday Saturday.

“I don’t think it’ll undergo any rapid intensification, but I do think it will be a tropical storm as it makes landfall in Belize,” she said.

Hoegg added it’s extremely unlikely that the storm will shift toward the U.S.

“The main thing steering this to the west is a large area of high pressure sitting over the eastern half of the nation,” she said. “That’s going to continue to be parked in place and push the storm westward.”

Tropical Storm Nadine, if it forms, will “fizzle out slowly” as it treks across Belize, Hoegg said.

Most spaghetti models—or computer models illustrating potential storm paths—anticipate that the storm won’t grow stronger than a Category 1 hurricane, if it even reaches hurricane strength.

The strengthening system arrives as the NHC monitors another system, known as AL94, in the northern Caribbean. Chances that the system will develop into a named storm, however, are increasingly low, at 20 percent. In addition to the decreasing chances over the past few days, the NHC also said “further development is not expected due to strong upper-level winds by early next week.”