While the FOX Forecast Center continues to watch the Southeast coast for possible tropical development later this week, a new disturbance is now being monitored in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean near the Bahamas.
The disturbance is currently producing a large area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms that extends a couple of hundred miles northeast of the Bahamas.
As of Sunday, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) only gives the disturbance a 10% chance of development into a tropical depression.
“Upper-level winds are expected to increase later today, and development of this system is not expected,” the NHC said in a Tropical Weather Outlook on Sunday morning.
As the disturbance tracks toward the north, heavy rain could reach parts of Bermuda later this week.
According to the NHC, only 3% of tropical cyclones form outside the official hurricane season, with May being the most popular month for out-of-season development.
A FOX Weather analysis found at least 90 tropical cyclones have formed out of season since the mid-1800s, with nearly half of those occurring in May.
The last tropical cyclone to form during May in the Atlantic Basin was Tropical Storm Ana in 2021. The brief storm developed east of Bermuda but quickly moved northeastward away from the archipelago and out to sea.
Four other storms have formed during May since 2018, but none strengthened beyond tropical storm status.
If a tropical cyclone does form off the Southeast coast, it would be the second system of 2023.
A recent reanalysis of a low-pressure system determined that a subtropical storm formed off the East Coast in January.
WHERE TROPICAL STORMS, HURRICANES TYPICALLY OCCUR DURING EACH MONTH OF ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON
Development during the offseason is rare, and nearly all tropical disturbances before June 1 fail to develop due to a lack of sufficient ingredients.
Meteorologists tracked an area of disturbed weather in the Gulf of Mexico in April that failed to develop into a named entity.
The next tropical cyclone that gains enough organization to be classified as a tropical storm in the Atlantic Basin will earn the name Arlene.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30.