Tropical Storm Lee Forms in the Atlantic, "Is it Too Soon to Worry"

Over the Labor Day weekend, social media feeds were bombarded with dire warnings about a huge hurricane hitting the United States East Coast next week. According to the National Hurricane Center, the hypothetical storm has now become Tropical Storm Lee, with sustained winds of 50 miles per hour. As per the reports, it is far too early to predict that a major storm will make landfall along the Eastern Seaboard.
Lee was a tropical depression heading west-northwest at 15 miles per hour on Tuesday morning in a desolate area of the central Atlantic, where computer models ran over the weekend predicted it would become a hurricane with category 4. Some social media users predicted the depression would become Tropical Storm Lee and then hit the United States East Coast as a hurricane.
Meteorologists have been keeping an eye on the system since it first appeared in computer models prior to the holiday weekend.
If it has an impact on land, the Leeward Islands in the northern Caribbean will be the first to feel it this weekend.
For the time being, there are far too many unknowns and far too many variables that could alter before the storm approaches North America. This is anticipated to be a large storm that moves west before turning north and then northeast. The only question is when it will make that turn.
It all comes down to the steering currents, and computer forecast models were showing an earlier shift toward the north and northeast as of Tuesday morning. This would place Bermuda in more danger than the United States or Canada. More information will become available as more data is collected this week and incorporated into computer models.
Even if this storm does not make direct landfall, it is expected to generate rip currents and large waves along the United States East Coast next week.
Most long-term forecasts predict that Lee will eventually curve north, skipping the Caribbean and remaining offshore of the United States. Hurricane Irma, which hit the Gulf Coast of Florida in 2017, was projected to follow a similar route.
Storm Lee is the 13th named storm in an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season. According to researcher Phil Klotzbach, "only four other years on record have had 13+ Atlantic named storms by September 5: 2005, 2011, 2012, and 2020."