MIDWAY, Fla. (WTXL) -- As we enter August, the threat for developing tropical storms expands to include more of the open Atlantic waters in the southern latitudes between the Lesser Antilles island chain and the Cape Verde Islands off the west Africa. This portion of the basin continues to be impacted by areas of dry air mixed with dust from the Sahara Desert, which has limited the amount of storms gathering in that region.
The only system with even a remote chance to develop is located over northeast Florida, part of the disturbed weather pattern that has plagued much of the central Florida peninsula with flooding rain over the last few days. The low-pressure circulation will track slowly to the northeast in the next 24 hours and emerge into the western Atlantic, but the upper-level environment will not favor further strengthening of this system.
Therefore, newly developed tropical cyclones are not in the near-term forecast for the Atlantic basin.