And Jose is not the only feature of concern in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. The National Hurricane Center is also monitoring two other systems in the eastern Atlantic that have a high chance to become tropical storms over the next five days. (More on them farther down.)

Tropical Storm Jose

This tenacious storm has almost completed the loop between Bermuda and the Bahamas that models have predicted since the weekend. Located about 430 miles east-northeast of the Bahamas, it is churning toward the west-northwest around 7 mph. It is expected to stay on this path through Friday, and then turn slightly more to the north by Saturday.

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Some strengthening is forecast for the next couple of days, and Jose is likely to regain hurricane intensity.

By Sunday, the National Hurricane Center forecast steers the storm almost due north, passing between Bermuda and the North Carolina Outer Banks. But that’s when model forecasts begin to diverge a bit.

By the early to middle part of next week, some outlier model simulations suggest that the storm center or at least its outer fringe could track farther west than the Hurricane Center official forecast, affecting the coast somewhere between the Outer Banks and eastern New England.

The most likely scenario is that this storm will be a near-miss for the East Coast, but it’s still a close call. At the very least, it is likely to generate dangerous surf along the coast of the Mid-Atlantic by this weekend, spreading north into New England by early next week.

Two additional disturbances in the tropical Atlantic Ocean

Two fledgling tropical weather disturbances are lined up back-to-back in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, and the Hurricane Center gives both a 70 percent chance to become a tropical depression or tropical storm over the next five days.

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The disturbance farthest east, just south of the Cabo Verde Islands, is predicted to develop first and could become Tropical Storm Lee in the next 48 hours. It is still many days from threatening any of the Lesser Antilles islands (or anywhere beyond that), if it ever does.