After an unusually slow start to the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center are monitoring a complex situation with high stakes for the Southeast.
As of Thursday morning, Category 1 Hurricane Gabrielle was tracking east away from the U.S. and toward the Azores, an archipelago in the mid-Atlantic. Meanwhile, two developing storm systems in the western Atlantic are showing potential to rapidly strengthen and perhaps even interact, which could bring significant impacts to the Southeast coast.
Potential interaction between Humberto and Invest 94L
Tropical Storm Humberto took shape in the central Atlantic on Wednesday and is now located several hundred miles northeast of the Leeward Islands. Though Humberto does not pose a direct threat to the U.S., the NHC expects it to rapidly strengthen over the next couple days as it tracks west-northwest, potentially reaching hurricane status by Friday evening.
To complicate matters further, a smattering of thunderstorms known as Invest 94L is hammering Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Hispaniola with heavy rain and gusty winds. This system has a 70% chance of organizing into Tropical Storm Imelda within the next 48 hours, and its proximity to Tropical Storm Humberto has forecasters watching closely.
“The close proximity of these systems could lead to interaction between them, and the details of their long-range track and intensity forecasts, and any potential impacts, are more uncertain than usual,” the NHC stated in a Wednesday update.
A few different scenarios could unfold
As Invest 94L moves into the Bahamas, it will encounter conditions that are more conducive to organization. If it does organize, that will most likely occur by late Saturday or Sunday, according to Texas-based meteorologist Matt Lanza.
At that point, what happens next with this system will largely depend on the proximity, strength, size, and timing of it and Humberto, CNN meteorologists Briana Waxman and Chris Dolce report.
If Invest 94L is relatively weak and slow-moving, Humberto could tug it out to sea, keeping serious impacts offshore. On the other hand, a strong, fast-moving storm could resist Humberto’s pull and track toward the Southeast coast. And if the storms get close enough to interact, this could trigger the Fujiwhara effect, a phenomenon in which two nearby tropical cyclones rotate around a common center point. This would either cause Humberto to fling Invest 94L out to sea or closer to land.
This complex setup becomes even more convoluted when factoring in the dip in the jet stream over the eastern U.S. This will play a key role in steering any tropical systems that enter its zone of influence, according to Waxman and Dolce. “If Humberto drifts east and the jet stream’s influence dominates, the future Imelda could be drawn into the Southeast coast,” they explained.
All this to say there is an exceptional amount of uncertainty around what will happen with these two systems, and it’s far too early to tell exactly what this means for the Southeast. Any impacts from these systems would most likely hit the region on Monday or Tuesday, but until then, all eyes will be on the Atlantic—watching for Humberto and Invest 94L’s next moves.