A system that was projected to see further development in the coming days has accelerated and is expected to strengthen into a tropical depression this weekend or early next week, the National Hurricane Center (N.H.C.) made known in its 8:00 p.m. forecast Friday.
N.H.C. said satellite imagery suggests that the circulation associated with an area of low pressure located about 1100 miles east-southeast of the Windward Islands -- St. Lucia, Dominican, Trinidad St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, and Martinique -- has become better defined, but the thunderstorm activity is limited at this time.
Environmental conditions appear conducive for additional development, N.HC. said, and a tropical depression is likely to form over the weekend or early next week while it moves generally westward to west-northwestward near 15 mph.
It is not clear, at the moment, if the storm will impact the U.S. Virgin Islands, but any slight turn north -- the storm is already moving west-northwest -- could mean danger for the territory.
N.H.C. is giving the storm a 60 percent formation chance through the next 48 hours, and a 70 percent chance of development through the next five days.
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