The National Hurricane Center has raised the Bermuda area low to a 50 percent chance of forming and a second disturbance southeast of the Cabo Verde islands now carries the tracking number 96L, and neither of the two areas the outlook is carrying threatens Southwest Florida

The National Hurricane Center is carrying two areas of interest in the Atlantic basin, according to the Tropical Weather Outlook issued at 2 p.m. Eastern on Monday, August 24 by forecaster Blake. Neither is a threat to Southwest Florida.

The nearer of the two is the broad area of low pressure a few hundred miles east-southeast of Bermuda, which the outlook heads Central Subtropical Atlantic and tags AL95. Satellite-wind data indicate its low-level circulation remains broad. The hurricane center puts formation at 50 percent over both 48 hours and seven days, up from 20 and 30 percent in the Saturday evening outlook this desk reported on August 22.

Higher odds on that system are not a warning for this coast. The outlook states that it could become a short-lived tropical depression or storm through Tuesday while it moves northward and north-northeastward, well northeast of Bermuda, and that by Wednesday it is forecast to move over cold waters, ending its formation chances. Its position in the hurricane center tracking data on Monday afternoon was about 251 miles east of Bermuda and roughly 1,337 miles from Fort Myers.

The second area is the one that has changed most. On Saturday it was a tropical wave still expected to leave the west coast of Africa. It is now over the ocean, centered a few hundred miles southeast of the Cabo Verde islands with disorganized showers and thunderstorms, and the outlook gives it 30 percent over 48 hours and 60 percent over seven days, up from 40 percent over seven days on Saturday. The hurricane center expects conditions to gradually become more conducive and says a tropical depression could form by the middle to latter portions of the week while the system moves westward to west-northwestward at 15 to 20 mph.

Gulf Coast News, the Fort Myers newsroom that reported the designation on Monday, identifies that eastern Atlantic system as Invest 96L. Meteorologist Sara Blue reports both areas at medium chances and the next named storm as possible this week.

The public outlook text never carries invest numbers, so this desk checked the designation against the hurricane center automated tracking data directly. The tracking file for 96L was created on Monday afternoon and its entry for 18:00 UTC carries the invest tag at 11.0 north and 18.5 west, a position 433 miles south-southeast of Praia in the Cabo Verde islands and about 4,242 miles from Fort Myers. The record also shows the system was promoted to an invest from a genesis area the hurricane center had already been tracking.

An invest number is a forecasters' tracking label, short for area of investigation. It signals that the system is being run through the models and its data feeds opened. It is not a statement that development is expected, and it is not a track.

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 non-tropical low west of Portugal that the Saturday outlook carried as a third area is no longer in the outlook.

September 10 is the climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, seventeen days from Monday.

A reading of the National Weather Service active alert list for Florida on Monday afternoon returned ten alerts statewide, in the panhandle, the Big Bend, the Suwannee valley and coastal Indian River. None covers Lee or Collier County, and none is connected to either Atlantic system.