The tropics certainly are active right now. Yesterday we had Tropical Storm Irma form, and now today it is already a hurricane. The storm is still forecast to take a rather unusual west-southwest track across the Atlantic, and this puts the United States at an elevated risk of landfall as it is less likely that the storm turns harmlessly out to sea. 

Of course, this is not to say that Irma cannot harmlessly turn out to sea. That is one of a series of possibilities from this storm, as everything from a Gulf of Mexico entrance to a Florida or East Coast landfall to re-curving out to sea remains on the table. Simply put, the current model spread does not go far enough out accurately for any real idea as to which is going to occur, as seen below on one model spaghetti plot courtesy of Tropical Tidbits. 

Among these models there is a strong consensus that the storm will become a major hurricane, and confidence in such strengthening over the next few days is high (image below again courtesy of Tropical Tidbits). 

It is the eventual track that remains virtually unknowable due to how far west the system still is in the Atlantic and the amount of noise that clouds the forecast going out over time. Interests across the East Coast should monitor the storm closely, but it will be a few days before we get much of a better sense about whether a Gulf of Mexico entrance or more of an East Coast/potentially out to sea track is significantly more likely. 

In the meantime, the National Hurricane Center is now monitoring two different disturbances for gradual development over the next five days, as seen below. 

The system south of Irma has very little going on and development will be slow, though that could be the next disturbance to watch after Irma should it begin to develop. However, more attention is currently being placed over the western Gulf of Mexico, where the same system we mentioned yesterday could still form. Confidence in any system forming here remains quite low, and for now the National Hurricane Center still has only a 20% chance of tropical cyclone development in the next 5 days, but a number of models do show some development possible in that 6-9 day time frame outside the NHC's current scope. Such development could put some areas impacted by Harvey back at risk, though it is again far too early to know exactly where or how bad any impacts would be.