Hurricane fears as huge tropical disturbance looms off the coast of America - here's where it could hit

Hurricane watchers are nervously eyeing the waters off French Guiana where plummeting air pressure threatens to birth a storm which could wreak havoc across the southeast coast.

At least eight people died and more than 2.7 million were left without power when Hurricane Beryl swept into Texas and up the Mississippi valley at the start of the month.

And after weeks of relative calm the National Hurricane Center (NHC) has warned that its successor, named Debby, could be brewing east of the Lesser Antilles.

'The chances of tropical development have bumped up to 40 percent within seven days,' tweeted the Texas Storm Chasers.

'Folks anywhere along any part of the Florida coastline ought to keep an eye on this. August looks busy as it tends to often be!'

The NHC first raised the alarm on Friday after spotting the tropical disturbance and seeing it was likely to clash with an approaching tropical wave.

The chances of it developing have nearly tripled since then with Weather Jamaica issuing a code Orange and warning that 'Debby is imminent'.

Forecast maps show the storm sweeping across the Caribbean and across Florida if it develops, but warn it could make land anywhere in the Gulf of Mexico or the Carolinas.

A large area of high pressure near Bermuda could force it into Texas while another over the southern plains could force it up the eastern seaboard.

'The tropics are waking up!' tweeted WJBF forecaster Miller Hyatt.

'A disturbance is brewing in the central Atlantic, but will it become our next named storm, Debby?

'Saharan dust is putting the brakes on development for now, but things could change by next week.'

Debby would only be the fourth named storm or hurricane of the 2024 season which began with Storm Alberto in June.

Beryl became the earliest-forming Category 5 hurricane on record as it swept a destructive path through Jamaica, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

It had subsided to a Category 1 by the time it hit Texas but still dropped up to 14 inches of rain on a state still recovering from storms in May which killed eight people, left nearly 1 million without power and flooded thousands of streets.

It spawned 16 known tornados across the state, killing a 53-year-old man in Humble after an oak tree fell on his house with the man and his family inside, and a 74-year-old woman when a tree fell into her room in Ponderosa Forest north of Houston.

The NHC said there is a medium chance that the latest disturbance will become Debby, but that the odds had increased over the weekend.

'Environmental conditions are forecast to become conducive for some development in a day or two, and a tropical depression could form around midweek while the system is near or over the northern Leeward Islands, Greater Antilles or southwestern Atlantic Ocean,' it said on Sunday.

Michael Estime of Fox Weather said unusual conditions may have helped protect the Carribean so far this year.

'Now that things are beginning to simmer back down in terms of the Saharan dust, that's going to ante up,' he added said.

'So we're not going to have all that dust in the atmosphere to kind of block and shelter some of the sun.'