Could we see a hurricane in late November? Meteorologists are watching the Caribbean

Hurricane season ends Nov. 30, but there’s an area of low pressure producing heavy thunderstorm activity across the Caribbean Sea that’s caught the attention of meteorologists.

As of Friday afternoon, the forecast from the National Hurricane Center gave the area only a 20 percent chance of developing into a significant storm.

The water temperature in that part of the Caribbean has been in the mid-80s — still warm enough to support a hurricane, according to Weather Underground.

As unusual as a November hurricane would be, last year — on Nov. 20, 2016 — Otto formed into a tropical storm and became a Category 3 hurricane that eventually made landfall in Nicaragua on Thanksgiving day.

Torrential rainfall and landslides from Hurricane Otto killed 23 people in Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

At least seven major hurricanes with winds of 111 mph or greater have formed in the Atlantic basin in November since 1900, according to the Weatherbug blog. Four of those have made landfall in the United States, all in Florida.

With about two weeks left to go in the current hurricane season, meteorologists say this one has been among the most intense ever recorded. The National Hurricane Center ranks 2017’s Atlantic season as the fifth most active on record, with 17 named storms — six of them classified as “major” Category 3 or higher, including Harvey that swamped the Texas Gulf Coast and Maria that devastated Puerto Rico.

The next name available is Sean.

This story was originally published November 16, 2017 at 12:28 PM with the headline "Could we see a hurricane in late November? Meteorologists are watching the Caribbean."