Tropical Depression 7 forms east of Caribbean, long-range forecast not set in stone
Track for Tropical Depression 7
TAMPA, Fla. - A new tropical depression has now formed in the Atlantic and will strengthen as it moves toward the northeastern Caribbean islands and Puerto Rico late this week and into the weekend.
It formed Wednesday morning and is moving generally westward over the next 1-2 days, likely bringing some gusty winds and locally heavy rainfall to parts of the Leeward Islands Friday into Saturday. It will then track near the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico this weekend.
After that, the long-range forecast is not set in stone.
Tropical Depression Seven is centered just over 800 miles east of the northeastern Caribbean islands and is producing a large area of showers and thunderstorms over the central tropical Atlantic.
The system will continue to battle with strong westerly wind shear on its northern flank, as well as some areas of dry air. These factors, along with land interaction, are likely to keep the system weak over the next few days. At most, it’ll be a low-end Tropical Storm Fiona.
The most likely scenario here is a turn to the north at some point after moving across parts of the Caribbean, but at this point, it’s simply too early to say how things will evolve and whether or not this could have any impacts on the U.S.
"What that means is the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles, (including) Puerto Rico, need to be on alert now because we are expecting to see showers and thunderstorms start to increase in that activity, and we could see some pretty strong wind gusts out of these thunderstorms that are again intensifying in these warmer waters of the Atlantic," FOX Weather meteorologist Jane Minar said.
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Recent rainfall has saturated the soils in Puerto Rico, so any additional heavy rain from Tropical Depression Seven or Tropical Storm Fiona this weekend could lead to flooding in urban areas and small streams, as well as trigger mudslides in the archipelago's mountainous terrain.
The National Hurricane Center noted that Tropical Storm Watches might be required for portions of the northeastern Caribbean islands later Wednesday.
Otherwise, it’s been a fairly quiet season. In 2020, we already had 20 named storms at this point of the year. In 2021, we had 14. This year season, there have been 5 named storms.
During an average year, eight named storms and three hurricanes have typically already formed by now, but so far in 2022, the tally stands at only five named storms and two hurricanes.
FOX Weather contributed to this report