Invest 97L could become our first hurricane of 2025, but it's too early to tell where it might go
A look at the long range outlook on Invest 97L.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The National Hurricane Center has labeled the tropical wave coming off of the west coast of Africa Invest 97L and has given it a medium chance of tropical development in the next 7 days. Find out more about what an invest area is here.
Satellite imagery Saturday showed early signs of circulation and increasing convection within the system, although pockets of dry air to the north could slow initial organization. Long-range forecast models, including the American GFS and the European ECMWF, both indicate the wave could strengthen into a tropical storm or hurricane sometime next week.
As of Saturday evening, both the GFS and ECMWF curve the storm north in the Atlantic before landfall in Florida. However, previous models run have brought the storm closer to home, so it is important to keep checking back for updates on the possible path.
Model agreement on strength between the GFS and ECMWF, along with ensemble clustering, is raising confidence in development, though uncertainty remains more than a week out.
Sea surface temperatures across the central and western Atlantic are in the mid-to-high 80s, with some areas near 90 degrees conditions highly favorable for intensification the more this tracks into the western Atlantic.
While the National Hurricane Center has not yet named the system, it has been designated as an “invest 97L” for closer monitoring. Any potential U.S. impacts would not occur until the 19th to the 21st even in a scenario the storm made a direct track to the west towards the coast.
August is one of the most active months of the Atlantic hurricane season, and storms frequently form in this region before tracking toward the Caribbean or along the U.S. East Coast.