The National Hurricane Center has issued advisories on Potential Tropical Cyclone Two, located a couple hundred miles east-southeast of the southern Windward Islands.
The chance of formation is placed at 80 percent over the next few days.
The advisories were issued early Monday afternoon.
Broad low pressure extends from the Yucatan Peninsula across the southern Gulf of Mexico. It’s producing a wide area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms -- east and northeast of the low over much of the eastern gulf.
The system doesn’t have well-defined surface circulation, but tropical-storm-force winds have been measured in a band about 100 northeast of the broad low.
“Upper-level winds are expected to be marginally conducive for some additional development of this system during the next day or two while it moves northward to northwestward into the central Gulf of Mexico, and a tropical or subtropical cyclone is likely to form during that time,” the NHC noted in its 1 p.m. update. “Regardless of development, interests along the U.S. Gulf Coast from the central Texas coast to the western Florida Panhandle should monitor the progress of this system, as a tropical storm watch or warning could be needed for portions of this area later today.”
Also, heavy rains are expected to continue over portions of Central America, the Yucatan Peninsula, the Cayman Islands, western Cuba, the Florida Keys, the Florida Peninsula, and spread into central and eastern portions of the U.S. Gulf Coast during the next day or two.
An Air Force “Hurricane Hunter” aircraft will fly into the system this afternoon.