Hurricane season isn’t over for the Carolinas. Another storm could hit the East Coast

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It’s been a cold weekend across the Carolinas and many people along the East Coast may already be planning their Thanksgiving menus for next week, but that doesn’t mean Hurricane season is over.

The 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season doesn’t end until Nov. 30, and there’s one more system out there that National Hurricane Center forecasters say could turn into a tropical depression or tropical storm in the coming days.

Hurricane Center forecasters Monday morning called the system “a vigorous tropical wave” that has a 50-percent chance of developing into a named storm by Wednesday, and a 90-percent chance over the next five days.

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As of Monday morning the system has a 90-percent chance of turning into a named storm, the National Hurricane Center forecasts.

National Hurricane Center

“Shower and thunderstorm activity has increased and become a little more concentrated this morning, and environmental conditions are forecast to gradually become more conducive for the development of a tropical depression or a tropical storm during the next day or so,” the Hurricane Center explained.

If the storm does continue to develop, it will be named Patty.

The system is still far from the East Coast. As of Monday, the Hurricane Center reported, and will continue moving west to northwest toward Puerto Rico and the Bahamas.

The Carolinas are still recovering and tallying the damage from hurricanes Florence and Michael, which between the two brought flooding from the coast to the mountains. The storms caused billions of dollars in damage in North and South Carolina.

Moody’s Analytics put the cost of damage and disruption from Hurricane Florence alone at as much as $22 billion, according to CNBC.

There have been seven major November hurricanes since 1851, according to Weather Underground. The latest in the season on record was Hurricane Kate in 1985, which became a Category 3 storm Nov. 20 before hitting the Florida Panhandle, according to the Weather Underground archive.

This year, the National Hurricane Center notes, October was busier than usual for tropical storms.

“In terms of Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE), which measures the combined strength and duration of tropical storms and hurricanes, activity in the Atlantic basin thus far in 2018 has been above normal. The season has already had 7 systems that were subtropical at some point in their lifetime, which eclipses the previous record of 5 in 1969,” the Hurricane Center explains.