Odds 50-50 tropical wave north of Puerto Rico becomes a depression

National Hurricane Center forecasters are keeping an eye on a tropical wave north of Puerto Rico becoming better organized, they said Friday.

Located a couple hundred miles north of the Puerto Rico, the disturbance remained messy Friday afternoon but is expected to encounter favorable conditions over the weekend. With wind shear, which would normally smother a hurricane, likely to weaken, forecasters gave the storm a 50 percent chance of forming over the next five days.

There’s also still a chance that dry air in the region could keep it in check. The system was expected to continue heading to the northwest Friday, then turn north over the weekend.

A second system off the coast of Central Florida that had been dumping heavy rain fizzled Friday, they said, with no chance of becoming a cyclone.

Earlier this week, forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration upped their prediction for hurricanes this year after early season conditions in the Tropical Atlantic and Caribbean hinted that more storms are likely.

This story was originally published August 12, 2017 at 2:16 PM with the headline "Odds 50-50 tropical wave north of Puerto Rico becomes a depression."