The next storm that could threaten the United States was beginning to take shape Monday afternoon among a swirl of thunderstorms off the shores of Honduras in the western Caribbean Sea, with forecasters saying there is a strong likelihood that it becomes Helene, the next name in the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season storm list.
Many of the forecast models that meteorologists use show the storm strengthening rapidly over the next few days before hitting somewhere along the central to eastern Gulf of Mexico coastline Thursday.
This storm follows Francine, which spun across the western Gulf of Mexico this month.
That storm struggled to organize and only slowly intensified into a weak Category 2 in the final few hours before making landfall in Louisiana and dropping a deluge of rainfall across New Orleans.
If this storm system forms more quickly into a named storm across the Caribbean, it is more likely to become a hurricane or even a major hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico before it hits land.
Persons:
Helene, Francine
Organizations:
National Hurricane Center, Nine
Locations:
United States, Honduras, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf, Mexico, Louisiana, New Orleans