Invest 95L: 30% odds near Bermuda, no threat to Florida

The National Hurricane Center is carrying three areas of interest in the Atlantic on Saturday night, and the closest one to the United States, the low east-southeast of Bermuda that Gulf Coast News identifies as Invest 95L, is given 30 percent over seven days and no direct threat to Florida

Money & World

The Editorial Team · August 23, 2026

A wide panoramic view of open sea under a long band of dark storm cloud, with grey shafts of rain falling to the water on the right and a pale gold break of light along the horizon. Small birds are scattered against the cloud. No land, boats, people, signage or text are in view. Stock photo, not a photograph of this event.

Stock photo

Stock photo. Not the actual scene. Photo: Josh Sorenson / Pexels

What it changes

If you live in Collier or Lee County, the practical answer on Saturday night is that there is nothing in the Atlantic to plan around, and the reason to read past that sentence is that we are eighteen days from the climatological peak of the season and this is the stretch when that answer stops being reliable. The National Hurricane Center's 8 p.m. outlook carries three areas of interest and not one of them is a threat to Southwest Florida. The one getting the attention is the closest to the United States: a broad, weak area of low pressure a few hundred miles east-southeast of Bermuda, producing showers and thunderstorms, given 20 percent over the next two days and 30 percent over the next seven. Gulf Coast News, the Fort Myers newsroom that put this on the desk, reports that this is the one that has been dubbed an invest and identifies it as Invest 95L. That is worth understanding rather than reacting to. An invest number is a tracking label, short for area of investigation, that forecasters attach when they want to run the computer models on something and open up the data feeds around it. It is not a forecast, not a warning, and not a step on the way to a storm. Plenty of invests never become anything. The label appears in the model and satellite products rather than in the public outlook text, which is why you will not find the number in the hurricane center's own wording tonight. What the hurricane center does say about that low is the 20 and 30 percent, which is its way of saying it is watching something that will most likely come to nothing. Gulf Coast News meteorologist Sara Blue reads the steering as a drift west-southwest now, curving north early next week, with any development gradual, and writes that regardless of what it does the area poses no direct threat to Florida. That is her forecast reasoning, offered here as the shape of a possibility rather than a track, and it points the system away from the United States rather than toward it. The area with the highest odds is the one furthest away and it is not yet in the ocean: a tropical wave expected to move off the west coast of Africa on Monday, with a low that could form behind it. It carries near zero percent over two days and 40 percent over seven, which the hurricane center classes as medium. A wave leaving Africa is at the far side of the basin, and the distance between there and any American coast is a week or more of travel during which it can strengthen, fall apart or turn. Nobody can honestly tell you tonight where something that does not yet exist will go, and any forecast that claims to is selling something. The third area is not really a Florida story at all. A strong non-tropical low several hundred miles west of Portugal could take on subtropical or tropical characteristics, at 20 percent over both two and seven days, and its practical effect is gusty winds, rain and rough seas for Portugal and northwest Spain early next week. Behind all three, the hurricane center's front page states plainly that there are no tropical cyclones in the Atlantic at this time. The two named systems it is running tonight, Hurricane Lala and Tropical Storm Moke, are both in the Central Pacific and have nothing to do with this coast. If a named storm does form in the Atlantic next, the name is Dolly, after Arthur, Bertha and Cristobal. The useful part of that is the count, not the name: three named storms and no Atlantic hurricanes by the twenty-second of August is a quiet season so far, consistent with the cuts NOAA and Colorado State both made to their numbers earlier this month, and it has never been a promise about September. So the read for a Southwest Florida household is the same as it was two weeks ago, which is the point. This is a weekend with nothing to react to, and therefore the right weekend to do the unglamorous part: know your evacuation zone, confirm the shutters or panels are where you think they are, check the batteries, and top up supplies at ordinary prices rather than at the prices that appear once a cone is on television. There is no watch, no warning and no advisory anywhere in Florida connected to any of these three areas.

The National Hurricane Center is carrying three areas of interest in the Atlantic basin, according to the Tropical Weather Outlook issued at 8 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, August 22 by forecaster Beven. None of the three is a threat to Southwest Florida, and the hurricane center states that there are no tropical cyclones in the Atlantic at this time.

The area closest to the United States is a broad zone of low pressure a few hundred miles east-southeast of Bermuda, producing showers and thunderstorms. The outlook puts formation at 20 percent over the next 48 hours and 30 percent over seven days.

Gulf Coast News, the Fort Myers newsroom that reported the three areas on Saturday night, identifies that Bermuda-area low as Invest 95L. The designation is a forecasters' tracking label, short for area of investigation, and it does not appear in the public outlook text, which never carries invest numbers. It signals that the system is being run through the models and its data feeds opened, not that development is expected.

Meteorologist Sara Blue writes that the low is drifting west-southwest and is expected to curve north early next week, that any tropical development would be gradual, and that regardless of development the area poses no direct threat to Florida. That is the newsroom's forecast reasoning rather than a hurricane center statement, and no track for a system that has not formed can be treated as settled.

The area with the highest odds has not reached the ocean yet. A tropical wave is expected to move off the west coast of Africa on Monday, and an area of low pressure could develop with it. The outlook gives that near zero percent over 48 hours and 40 percent over seven days, which the hurricane center classes as a medium chance.

The third area is a strong non-tropical low several hundred miles west of the coast of Portugal, which could acquire subtropical or tropical characteristics. It carries 20 percent over both 48 hours and seven days. Gulf Coast News reports it is moving east-southeast toward Portugal and northwest Spain, where it could bring gusty winds, rain and rough seas early next week.

Three named storms have formed in the Atlantic this season, Arthur, Bertha and Cristobal, and none became a hurricane. If a fourth forms, the next name on the 2026 list is Dolly.

The two tropical cyclones the hurricane center is running on Saturday night, Hurricane Lala and Tropical Storm Moke, are both in the Central Pacific.

September 10 is the climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, eighteen days from Saturday.

No watch, warning or advisory anywhere in Florida is connected to any of the three areas.

The National Hurricane Center is carrying three areas of interest in the Atlantic on Saturday night, and the closest one to the United States, the low east-southeast of Bermuda that Gulf Coast News identifies as Invest 95L, is given 30 percent over seven days and no direct threat to Florida

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