Tropical trouble an outside risk for weekend

The tropics have been extremely quiet all season, despite forecasts of a busy hurricane season in the Southeast and the Gulf of Mexico.

But a tropical system could bring weather troubles to the Carolinas late this weekend.

Could .....

The National Hurricane Center is watching an area of disturbed weather in the western Caribbean Sea, and forecasters have given it a 50 percent chance of becoming an organized tropical depression or storm within the next five days.

By late in the weekend, a cold front is expected to be pushing eastward across the United States, bringing an end to the 80-degree weather that the Carolinas will experience the next few days.

Forecasters think the tropical system could link with the cold front and move northward along the frontal system.

The computer models, as you might expect, are all over the board. As meteorologist Andrew Kimball at the National Weather Service's office in Greenville-Spartanburg noted this morning, the various forecasts have the tropical system reaching the U.S. coast anywhere from the Florida panhandle to western Louisiana.

If the system were to move northward across Georgia and the western Carolinas, it could mean heavy rain and severe weather for the Charlotte region, perhaps late Saturday and Sunday. As Kimball notes, a path through the South Carolina Midlands would spare our region of the rain and severe conditions.

We'll watch this over the next several days.