The big talk of the town has been this tropical wave brewing near the Lesser Antilles. However, it's looking increasingly likely this disturbance could become a tropical depression as early as this weekend, according to the National Hurricane Center. The big question on everyone's mind is where the system may travel and what we could feel in central Florida. As of Thursday afternoon, this tropical wave has a 70% chance of development over the next seven days. There's a slight, 30% chance of development over the next 48 hours. The system now has been given an "invest" — Invest 97-L, to be exact — meaning that hurricane center forecasters are watching it closely for potential development into a tropical depression or storm. "Development of this system should be slow to occur during the next day or so while it moves west-northwestward over portions of the Greater Antilles. However, environmental conditions are forecast to be more conducive for development after the wave passes the Greater Antilles, and a tropical depression is likely to form this weekend or early next week over the eastern Gulf of Mexico near the Florida Peninsula," the NHC wrote. Meteorologists often use a variety of computer models like the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts ("Euro" for short) or the Global Forecast System (GFS, also known as the "American" model). Both are excellent tools used for both daily and long-term tropical forecasting. In the case of this tropical wave, both computer models have not entirely agreed on what could potentially become of it as we head into the weekend ahead. However, that trend is changing and they are slowly becoming more aligned with where this cluster of moisture could be heading. MORE: https://www.wtsp.com/article/weather/tropics/tropical-depression-could-form-near-florida/67-6b798d78-3c7b-402c-b865-953287386d60 ►Subscribe: https://on.wtsp.com/youtube ►Website: https://www.wtsp.com/ ►Facebook: https://facebook.com/10TampaBay ►X: https://twitter.com/10TampaBay