It’s August. Is hurricane season heating up?

A low pressure disturbance out over the open Atlantic–in what’s called the hurricane “main development region”–is now being given an 80 percent chance of becoming a named tropical cyclone by the National Hurricane Center.

If so, this would be the first “Cape Verde-type” storm of the year–so called because it developed near the Cape Verde islands. Cape Verde type storms show up once the season really gets going, and are frequently the most intense and powerful.

Here’s an image of 91L, which everyone will be watching closely: