Tropical Storm Lee Forms In Atlantic As Season Peak Nears: NHC

Updated, 5:20 p.m. Tuesday

FLORIDA — The Atlantic hurricane season has entered its busiest month, and as the peak of the 2023 season draws near, forecasters are tracking a new tropical storm that will likely become a powerful hurricane by the end of the week.

According to the National Hurricane Center, a tropical wave located in the Atlantic Ocean became better organized Tuesday morning. By 5 p.m. Tuesday, the NHC upgraded the system to a tropical storm.

By Tuesday evening, Tropical Storm Lee was located about 1,300 miles east of the Lesser Antilles and was moving west-northwest with sustained winds of 45 mph. NHC forecasters said the system is expected to rapidly intensify into an "extremely dangerous" hurricane by this weekend.

While the exact trajectory and magnitude of Lee is still unknown, forecasters said the storm would likely impact the Leeward Islands by this weekend.

The prediction comes a week after Hurricane Idalia slammed into Florida's Big Bend area as a strong Category 3 storm, bringing life-threatening storm surge, rainfall and damaging winds to an area that's never experienced such an event. Idalia then moved into Georgia and the Carolinas as a powerful tropical storm.

Early estimates said Idalia caused anywhere between $12 billion to $20 billion in damage throughout Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

Idalia, the season's third hurricane, formed on Aug. 29, 10 days earlier than average, according to a New York Times report.

As the 2023 season approaches its Sept. 10 peak, 12 named storms including Lee have formed in the Atlantic. Only eight other seasons in more than 100 years have matched that pace, Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane expert at Colorado State University, told The Times.

On average, nearly 30 percent of named storms happen in September, as do 40 percent of all hurricanes and 60 percent of major hurricanes. Last year, Hurricane Ian struck Florida in late September as a powerful Category 4 storm, causing $115 billion in damage and claiming at least 150 lives.

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Two opposing factors have reduced forecasters' confidence in what's in store for the rest of the 2023 hurricane season.

In its final forecast released Aug. 3, the CSU Tropical Meteorology Project team predicted 18 named storms during the Atlantic hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30. However, the team stressed its uncertainty as a robust El Niño developed in the Atlantic and was likely to persist through the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season.

According to forecasters, El Niño increases vertical wind shear in the Caribbean and tropical Atlantic, which can often rip apart storms. While El Niño typically reduces Atlantic hurricane activity, current record-warm water temperatures in the Atlantic could counteract this by fueling hurricane activity and increasing the strength of storms.

"How these diametrically opposing factors interact will determine exactly how much activity occurs in 2023," Colorado State researchers said.