Update, 1 p.m.:

The latest report from the National Weather Service says there's a 70 percent chance Invest 99 will develop into a tropical system in the next few days.

The disturbance, which remains disorganized and has seen a drop-off in intensity Thursday afternoon, was expected to move west-northwest toward the Bahamas and Florida by Saturday.

Winds in the upper levels of the atmosphere could be more favorable for development, the NHC said, by late this weekend or early next week.

Update, 7:30 a.m.:

Invest 99 remains disorganized, lacking a well-defined center, hurricane hunter aircraft confirmed Thursday morning.

There is a chance it could become a tropical depression or storm later Thursday or Friday, the National Weather Service said. Effects could be felt in southern Florida by the weekend.

Forecast models continued to disagree on its path and expected strength.

Key messages from NHC regarding tropical wave as of 8am EDT Thursday.https://t.co/tW4KeFW0gB #99L @NHCDirector pic.twitter.com/bgI5qPsm1Y — NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) August 25, 2016

Original story:

The blob of wind and rain nearing Puerto Rico on Wednesday didn’t have a name, a closed center of circulation or even an expected path, but it did have everyone’s attention.

As thousands in south Louisiana work on cleaning out inundated homes after last week’s floods, many are watching what is now called Invest 99L. But getting a handle on whether the tropical wave will develop into a more serious storm has been difficult.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty, but it clearly bears watching,” said Barry Keim, the state climatologist. It could be a few days before residents along the Gulf and East coasts have a better idea of what next week holds. If the system does get organized, it will be named Hermine, a tropical situation that is looking more likely.

On Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center gave a 60 percent chance that at least a tropical depression will form in the next two days and an 80 percent chance of forming in the next five days.

“Because of the large uncertainties regarding this system’s development and future track, it is too early to speculate on what specific impacts might occur in the northwestern Bahamas, Florida or beyond,” according to the center.

Hurricane hunter aircraft went out Wednesday morning, and although they found tropical force winds, they couldn’t find evidence that a closed circulation had formed, which would indicate that the storm had organized into a tropical depression or even tropical storm. The aircraft and crew were slated to make another trip into the system early Thursday morning to look for any possible circulation.

“That’s causing the models all kinds of problems determining where it will go,” Keim said about the lack of a center. Without knowing where the storm is starting from, it’s very difficult to get a good idea of where it might be headed. This meant that computer model results Wednesday showed many different possible paths for the storm.

“This thing could go in any direction right now,” Keim said.

On Tuesday, Keim said, it appears that the system was going to take a route up the East Coast somewhere between Florida to the Carolinas. Twenty-four hours later, the computer models are looking more favorable to a Gulf of Mexico storm if development of the system continues.

“It’s still very early. It could do a lot of different things,” Keim said. It could head up the East Coast or into the Gulf of Mexico and it could grow into a hurricane or just fizzle into nothing.

“There’s always hope,” Keim said. “There’s a lot of moving parts with this kind of forecasting.”

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There is even less certainty about how strong the storm could get since intensity forecasting is historically difficult.

“It’s one area the National Hurricane Center really has not improved much in the last few decades,” Keim said. “Getting the intensity correct is really complex. There’s so much involved that the models don’t handle it really well.”