Tropical Storm Humberto is churning in the central Atlantic, but all eyes are shifting to a newer system taking shape in the northern Caribbean. That disturbance, temporarily dubbed "Invest 94L," is already bringing heavy rainfall to Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Hispaniola (the island housing Haiti and the Dominican Republic), with a strong likelihood of ramping up into a named storm by the weekend, reports CNN.
The real intrigue lies in how these two systems might interact. If 94L remains relatively weak, Humberto could pull it out to sea. But if the disturbance gathers enough strength, helped along by the Caribbean's warm waters, it could chart a course that might bring it uncomfortably close to the East Coast of the United States. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has dispatched multiple Hurricane Hunter aircraft to gather detailed data from both systems. That information will be fed into forecasting models, which meteorologists hope will clarify the possible scenarios.
The stakes are high, as the outcome depends on a delicate balance: the strength and size of both storms, their timing, and their proximity to one another. Forecast models suggest 94L could move north toward the Bahamas this weekend, bringing it near Humberto and raising the possibility of a complex "Fujiwhara effect," where two storms do an "intense dance" around a shared point and potentially alter each other's paths, per the National Weather Service.
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Meanwhile, to add yet more layers of uncertainty about weather in the region, a trough of low pressure over the eastern US could either drag the system toward the coast or help keep it offshore. FOX 35 notes that the National Hurricane Center is also now tracking Hurricane Gabrielle, which is moving toward Portugal's Azores but will lead to swells that will affect Bermuda and the shorelines of the eastern US and Canada.
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