Claudette developed overnight Sunday, and was immediately a threat to make landfall in the US. The storm spun up off the west coast of Florida, but it will move onshore farther up the coast in the Panhandle near Pensacola. The storm is not terribly strong, and it is not likely to intensify before landfall.

Tropical Depression Ana has been weakening today and is not likely to be a major player as it wanders through the Caribbean. The Dominican Republic, US Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico should all see some squally conditions and 2-4″ of rain.

The storm of greatest concern is Bill. It is very close to hurricane strength, and most of the computer models crank the maximum sustained winds to over 100 mph in the next couple of days. The storm will likely move just north of the Leeward Islands, and may miss the Caribbean completely.

Right now, although Bill is a storm the entire East Coast of the US needs to watch closely, I’d say the biggest threat is for Bill to hit Bermuda. Many of the Stormtracker projections take Bill to north of Puerto Rico, and then curving to the north toward Bermuda. Of course, long-range hurricane projections can be erratic, so we’ll have to monitor this for the next couple of days.

On the heels of T.D. Two is a tropical wave that has high potential for development. Per the National Hurricane Center, there is a greater than 50% chance that this area of disturbed weather becomes a tropical cyclone in the next 48 hours. Some computer models track that system close to the U.S. in about 10 days. It is one to watch.

We are really into some rare territory when it comes to late-starting hurricane seasons. This is now fifth on the list of late-starting seasons since 1960. The last time we waited this long for a tropical storm to form was in 1992. The storm was Andrew – the last storm to strike the U.S. as a Cat 5.

Obviously, there is no correlation between slow-starting seasons and a reduced potential for devastating storms.

A couple of factors may be impeding the storm’s development. The first factor is a lot of dry air and Saharan dust in the vicinity of the storm. You can see all the dry air in this image below on the left. Click the image for a larger view. The dry air is colored red.

The image on the right shows the amount of wind shear (turning of the wind with height) that the storm is encountering. Wind shear inhibits the development of tropical systems. Light winds in the upper atmosphere are favorable for storms to develop. This storm, although not hitting extremely strong wind shear, is entering an area of increasing wind shear. This is most likely contributing to the storm’s slow development.

The third image is sea surface temperature. You can see that ocean temps are warm throughout the Eastern Atlantic near the storm. The sea surface temperature is not a negative contributor to the storm’s development.

The storm is still likely to reach Tropical Storm (Ana) strength within 24 hours. It may not, however, become a hurricane. The long-range computer models are not too bullish on the intensity forecast. Many of the projections keep the storm between 50-65 mph for several days to come.

The Tropical Wave that is off the coast of Africa is showing more potential to develop. At this point, the National Hurricane Center says there is about a 30-50% chance that this becomes a tropic cyclone in the next 48 hours.