A tropical wave working across the Caribbean Sea lost some of its punch today and forecasters give it only a 20 percent chance of becoming a tropical storm by Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said.
Earlier, forecasters said the wave had a much higher chance of developing - 40 percent - but it became less organized later today.
However, later in the week the wave will move into a region where the atmosphere will be more favorable for it to slowly develop, forecasters said.
The wave is roughly south of Hispaniola and about 900 miles southeast of Key West, moving west-northwest at 10 to 15 mph with winds just less than 30 mph.
Computer models that forecast a storm's path projected the wave moving across the Caribbean south of Jamaica in the next day or so. After that, the models scattered widely, with a few taking the storm across the Yucatan Peninsula but most moving it to the central Gulf of Mexico by the end of the weekend.
The wave is moving over water in the Caribbean that is about 85 degrees, easily warm enough to fuel a storm.
Water in the central Gulf where models take it also is about 85 degrees, the temperature the Gulf usually doesn't reach until August.
Intensity forecasts were fairly uniform in predicting the wave will become a tropical storm by Thursday or Friday. Beyond that, a few projected it reaching hurricane strength by the weekend.
Most of the intensity models expect the storm to weaken early next week.
The season's first tropical storm would be called Alex.
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