New Jersey’s beautiful stretch of dry, pleasant weather may end just in time for the upcoming weekend. Forecasters are monitoring the potential for a coastal storm that could bring heavy rain to our region.

According to meteorologists from AccuWeather and the National Weather Service, a low pressure area will develop near the Carolina coast later this week. This area could come close enough to New Jersey to encounter another storm system approaching from the west.

Depending on the timing and direction of the systems, 1 to 2 inches of rain could fall in the Garden State on Saturday, meteorologists said.

However, not all computer-controlled models agree on the same heavy load.

According to the National Weather Service, some models are predicting that a low pressure area will move across the northwestern United States late this week, triggering a cold front that will bring rain to the Garden State on Saturday.

“Further south, a low pressure area appears to be emerging from the Gulf Coast, interacting with the northern outflow and moving up the East Coast,” the weather service’s Mount Holly office reported Tuesday morning.

“The overall guidance remains mixed on how these two features interact,” the weather service said. “Some deterministic guidance and ensembles show the low extending off the coast near the Hampton Roads/Norfolk area and moving up the coast, while other ensembles show the low pushing eastward off the Outer Banks and out to sea, with only the cold front bringing some showers.”

AccuWeather meteorologists say it’s not yet known whether the two storm systems will merge, but there’s a chance of heavy rainfall, along with strong winds along the coast, this weekend.

The coastal storm is expected to “sweep the southern U.S. this week” and drift off the Mid-Atlantic coast on Thursday, AccuWeather said in a forecast report on AccuWeather.com. “If that happens, it will combine with the high pressure system to produce strong, onshore winds along the East Coast.”

“Strong rip currents, rough seas and even beach erosion could affect beachgoers from the Carolinas to Maine Thursday through the weekend,” AccuWeather said.

Possible storms in the Atlantic Ocean

Although the Atlantic hurricane belt has been unusually quiet in recent weeks, meteorologists are monitoring three tropical disturbances: one in the Caribbean Sea, one in the central Atlantic Ocean and one in the eastern Atlantic Ocean.

According to the National Hurricane Center, two of these disturbances, also called tropical waves, have a 40 percent chance of developing into a tropical depression or tropical storm in the next seven days.

There is only a 10% chance that an organized tropical system will develop within the next seven days.

Current weather radar