Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) are keeping a close watch on a new system of “disorganized showers and thunderstorms” off the Leeward Islands, that could become Tropical Storm Humberto.

And they say the next named storm, “could form from a tropical wave that is approaching the Caribbean in the next five days, or a new system that popped up even closer to Florida and the Bahamas”.

According to the NHC, “Its five day track could bring it over the lower Bahamas or to the east in the Atlantic”.

The NHC “puts a 20 percent chance of that within five days”.

“By mid week, environmental conditions could become more conducive for development when the disturbance reaches the southwestern Atlantic Ocean,” the NHC said.

As of Sunday, September 8, the system was located several hundred miles west of the Cape Verde Islands, and was projected to be some 300 miles off the Leeward Islands in five days – “a little closer than Hurricane Dorian when it became a tropical depression”.

“Some slow development of this system is possible during the next several days while the low moves westward across the central tropical Atlantic Ocean, ” the NHC said.

The chances that this system becomes a tropical depression are rated “at 20 percent in the next 48 hours and 40 percent in the next five days”.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Dorian has “devolved into Post-Tropical Cyclone Dorian”, with 70 mph winds , located over the Gulf of St Lawrence, while Tropical Storm Gabrielle spins with 60 mph winds over the central Atlantic Ocean with a five-day track that could have it threatening Ireland and Scotland.

According to the NHC: “If either one of the tropical wave investigations become a tropical depression, it would be the 9th depression of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season.

“If it then grows to maintain at least 39 mph sustained winds, it would become Tropical Storm Humberto.”

Hurricane Dorian “grew into depression strength about 800 miles east of the Leeward Islands” on August 24, then “passed over the US. Virgin Islands as a tropical storm on Aug. 28”, before taking aim at the Bahamas as “a powerful Category 5 hurricane” packing 185 mph sustained winds that left 43 people dead.

The storm which stalled over the Bahamas for two days, then moved along the coastline of Florida and the US eastern seaboard, making landfall in the Outer Banks of North Caroline as a Category 1 hurricane last Friday, before moving past New England and into eastern Canada, making landfall again, near Halifax, Nova Scotia on Saturday.

The NHC also noted that we’re in the peak season period of the 2019 hurricane season, which is between mid-August and late October.