Tropical wave forms in the Atlantic Ocean

“Showers and thunderstorms have become more concentrated overnight and are showing signs of organization, but the system still appears to lack a well-defined circulation”, the hurricane center wrote in its 8 a.m. Wednesday Tropical Weather Outlook report. People in the northwestern Bahamas and Florida should monitor the system’s progress. It then crossed North Carolina and Virginia before exiting to the northeast and dissipating.

Packing winds of 70 miles per hour, Gaston was moving to the northwest at 16 miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center said. Some weakening is forecast during the next day or so.

Gaston, the strongest tropical wave in Atlantic right now, has been upgraded to a category one hurricane.

“The estimated minimum central pressure from the aircraft data is 988 mb [29.18 inches]”.

Thursday morning, the National Hurricane Center downgraded Gaston back to a tropical storm with 70 mph winds, but the storm is still moving northwest at 17 mph about 1,225 miles west of the Leeward Island. However, some of the reliable forecast models have more recently suggested conditions would become more favorable for development in these areas if Invest 99 were to slow down.

The National Hurricane Center is also watching Fiona and Gaston, storms in the Atlantic that pose less concern for the mainland United States.

South Florida could be threatened by a tropical system as early as this coming weekend. A few projected the storm would instead take a more northerly turn into the Atlantic off the U.S. East Coast.

Regardless of its future status, forecasters warned that islands from the northeastern Caribbean Sea to the Bahamas could get hit with gusty winds, heavy rains, flash floods and mud slides. It could become a tropical storm or depression at any time during the next couple of days, the release said.

But Gaston, as expected, quickly weakened again to a tropical storm.