The National Hurricane Center is following a stretch of showers and thunderstorms several hundred miles west of the African coast, and it suspects that a tropical storm may hit the United States shores by Friday.

“Cloudiness and showers associated with a broad area of low pressure located several hundred miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands are showing some signs of organization,” said hurricane specialist John Cangialosi in a Sunday evening Tropical Weather Outlook bulletin. Headded, “Environmental conditions appear conducive for development of this system during the next few days and a tropical depression could form by midweek while it moves westward near 15 mph.”

According to the information, there’s a 50 percent likelihood of a tropical depression or storm developing by Tuesday evening and a 60 percent chance by Friday.

However, the National Hurricane Center’s five-day outlook and data-tracking systems predict that the storm will migrate westward across the Atlantic towards the Caribbean Sea.

Source: The Times Picayune