A weather system south of Cuba, forecast to move into the Gulf of Mexico within about 96 hours, is being closely monitored by the U.S. National Hurricane Center as the most likely candidate to become the first named tropical storm of the 2010 hurricane season, though at present there is only a moderate chance (30 percent) of the system developing into a tropical storm or hurricane. There is also no model consensus on the trajectory of the storm, as to whether it will continue to move westward or shift more west-northwest or — in the worst case scenario for the United States — in a northwestern and then northern direction towards the BP oil spill. It is also not clear how far the storm will develop, or whether it will become more organized as it moves toward the Gulf. At present the system is building more thunderstorms and is likely to develop a broader, more organized circulation, but it does not yet pose a threat to oil spill containment efforts — only two of the current projections show the system's trajectory intersecting with the spill. In the event that a tropical storm or hurricane should develop and its trajectory should put it in line with the oil spill, which would become clearer in the coming days, it would require response efforts and the drilling of the relief wells — the best hope for stopping the leak — to be delayed. A hurricane that strikes on the western side of the oil spill — which is possible according to two computer modeled trajectories — could drive oil-contaminated water onto the U.S. coast.
