Potential Tropical Cyclone Twenty-Two officially formed in the Caribbean on Thursday, a sign that the tropics are still active even though there are only about two weeks left in the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) had been tracking an area of showers and thunderstorms in the Caribbean and dubbed it Invest 98L on Wednesday. An invest is a naming convention used by the NHC that allows forecasters to run specialized computer models on systems being monitored for possible development.
If PTC Twenty-Two becomes a tropical storm, it will take the name Vince – the next-to-last name on the 2023 Atlantic list.
According to the latest NHC advisory, PTC Twenty-Two is located off the coast of Central America and is moving north-northeast at 9 mph
According to the NHC, PTC Twenty-Two is expected to strength into a tropical storm by Friday before making landfall in Jamaica late Friday or early Saturday. From there, the storm will head toward eastern Cuba and the Bahamas.
A Tropical Storm Watch has been issued for Jamaica, eastern Cuba, Haiti, the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos.