It’s still busy out there in the Atlantic with two named storms and another area to watch near Africa. Here’s the latest in the tropics:

Hurricane Lee

After struggling with wind shear and dry over the weekend, Lee looks to have regained its footing and is back to major hurricane status this morning. As of the 5AM Monday advisory, Lee has 120 mph winds, making it a category 3 storms. It is moving to the NW at 7 mph. 

Lee will continue its slow crawl to the northwest over the next day or so before making a sharp turn to the north — keeping the storm hundreds of miles to the east of Florida. It will weaken as it treks north, but could still be a hurricane as it nears New England and Atlantic Canada this weekend. 

Tropical Storm Margot

Margot remains a 65mph tropical storm this morning in the central Atlantic. It will continue to move to the north, possible becoming a hurricane over the next few days — staying well away from any land areas. Margot, thankfully, is no threat to land. 

Other areas to watch

Another disturbance has emerged off the coast of Africa, and models are hinting that this could very well be the next named storm of the season. Development would likely be gradual with this, but by the weekend a tropical depression or tropical storm could form as it nears the Caribbean. The next name on the list would be Nigel. 

This disturbance should follow a somewhat similar path to Lee, as it drifts to the WNW across the eastern Atlantic. Most models show development as the storm drifts north of the Caribbean by early next week. In fact, for this far out, there’s fairly solid agreement between two of the more reliable forecast models, the GFS (American) and the European — both of which show the center of a tropical storm/hurricane north of the Caribbean by the middle of next week. 

It’s still too far out to say who, if anyone, would see any impacts from this potential storm. We have a long time to watch this one before it comes anywhere close to land, and you know we’ll be watching it closely. Stick with ABC7 as we continue to track the tropics through the remainder of hurricane season.