The National Hurricane Center has increased the chances for tropical development to a medium 60 percent in the Caribbean and southwestern Gulf of Mexico.

“A broad area of low pressure is expected to form over the southwestern Caribbean Sea later this week from a tropical wave currently located over the central Caribbean Sea,”  National Weather Service Lake Charles’ Warning Coordination Meteorologist Roger Erickson said.

Environmental conditions are forecast to be conducive for development of the low, and a tropical depression could form late this week or this weekend while the system moves northwestward over the northwestern Caribbean Sea, across the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, and into the southwestern Gulf of Mexico by Sunday.

Elevated tides and above-normal rain chances are expected this weekend into early next week in Texas and Louisiana.

“It is too early to know specifically where it will make landfall or how strong it will be,” Erickson said. “People in Texas and Louisiana need to stay abreast of this developing weather event.”