A smallish, but fairly well defined area of low pressure in the central Atlantic which was tagged as Invest 98L a while ago, but then nearly fell a permanent victim to an abundance of dry air, has entered a much less hostile region.

This low may be re-titled with a different Invest number today, but for now I have listed it as x98L for consistency.

x98L has sort of been flying under the radar, and as of 2:45AM EDT, the system already has several of the hallmarks of a small, sheared tropical cyclone. Presently, x98L is located near 16.5N 53W, with movement generally to the west.

From the looks of things, it would not be surprising to see this low become an officiated tropical cyclone within the next 36 hours. The most recent odds given by NHC were only 10%, but that is almost sure to be raised this morning, and possibly by a lot.

Unsurprisingly, CMC is already bullish, developing the system into a bona fide tropical storm, and spinning it off to the north, harmlessly out at sea. An alternative solution would be to keep the feature somewhat weaker, and carry it farther west, in which case we would want to watch it for potentially significant development later this week, or next, much closer to land.

This is where to put mid to long range thoughts on this feature's potential for further development, intensity, and forecast track. Longer range model output discussions are also appropriate here.