The final month of hurricane season is approaching, but things may not remain completely quiet as the southwestern Caribbean is watched for possible late-season tropical development.

Here’s the latest status on the Caribbean to watch: The National Hurricane Center (NHC) says a broad area of ​​low pressure is likely to form within a few days in the area highlighted below, located east of Central America and south of Jamaica.

Afterwards, this low pressure area will be closely watched to see if it becomes better defined by concentrated thunderstorms. If that happens, a tropical depression or storm could form.

A possible tropical development would not occur until late this week or next weekend at the earliest. The next Atlantic storm name is Patty.

This is where this possible system could follow: For now, the NHC says this eventual broad low-pressure area will only drift north or northeast over the next five to seven days. If a named storm does eventually develop, it is too early to know which land areas it could affect in the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean.

The broad low-pressure area combined with a stagnant front could bring at least locally heavy rainfall to Central America and other parts of the Caribbean, regardless of tropical development.

Historically, the area in yellow below, which extends from the western Caribbean to the Bahamas, and a separate area in the central Atlantic Ocean, have seen the most occurrences of named storm formations in November.

The last month of the hurricane season generates an average of one storm every one to two years. In the past ten years, the last storm of the season disappeared as early as October 28 and as late as December 7.

Last year there were no storms in November.

But 2022 was the exact opposite, as Martin and Nicole developed into hurricanes in November. Lisa also strengthened into a hurricane during the month after forming a tropical storm on October 31.

Nicole ultimately struck Florida’s Atlantic coast as a Category 1, becoming only the fourth November hurricane to make landfall on the U.S. mainland, according to records from the mid-19th century.

Chris Dolce has been a senior meteorologist at Weather.com for more than 10 years after starting his career at The Weather Channel in the early 2000s.