Tropical disturbance forming east of the Bahamas

The tropical disturbance is not yet a depression, or even a storm, meteorologist Nate Johnson said.

It had winds of approximately 20 to 30 mph and was situated over 1,000 miles from Raleigh, as of Tuesday afternoon.

Forecasts predict that the tropical disturbance will stay off the coast of the United States.

“At this point, we are continuing to watch it,” Johnson said.

If the tropical disturbance does move closer to North Carolina, it would be late Friday or early Saturday.

Hurricane Bill, which churned up waves that were blamed in the deaths of at least two people on the East Coast over the weekend, was the first Atlantic hurricane this year after a quiet start to the season that runs from June through November. The Miami center lowered its Atlantic hurricane outlook on Aug. 6 after no named tropical storms developed in the first two months.

The revised prediction was for three to six hurricanes, with one or two becoming major storms with winds over 110 mph. Researchers at Colorado State University have also lowered their Atlantic season forecast to four hurricanes, two of them major.