Tonight the National Hurricane Center officially declared Bret as a tropical storm. The forecast cone shows that Bret is expected to continue west and gradually strengthen to a hurricane until it gets into the Caribbean. At that point, wind shear is likely to weaken Bret back to a tropical storm. The computer models have a wide scatter, so the prediction is less certain than usual. At this point, it is no threat to anywhere in the Southeast except possibly Puerto Rico, but we should continue to watch the storm to see where it goes. Even if it drops to a tropical depression or remnant low, if it went over the Southeast it could bring more rain to a region that is already wet. However, this is not a likely scenario so no worries at this point, just something to keep an eye on.
Right behind it is another tropical wave that also looks very healthy and has a 60% chance of forming in the next 7 days. The early forecasts for that storm have it turning right towards the North Atlantic, where it would be no threat to the Southeast. There is another wave coming off of Africa which could be a future concern. This situation looks a lot more like September than June and is most likely linked to the unusually warm ocean water in the Atlantic, since we have never had two hurricanes form this far east in the main development region of the eastern Atlantic in June before.
