BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Jul 4, 2007 - A tropical depression is expected to form Wednesday or Thursday east of the southern Windward Islands.

The area with a barometric pressure of 1013 millibars is centered near 11 degrees north and 42 degrees and is travelling westward over warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean at 10 to 15 miles per hour (mph). Current wind speed is estimated to be near 30mph.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Centre in Miami, which has forecasting responsibility for the Caribbean, say that the disturbance located about 1250 miles east of Barbados is showing signs of development and a tropical depression could form within the next 24 hours.

Global forecast models, which were run at midnight GMT Tuesday, are in good agreement that the system will travel West-northwest and could make landfall somewhere in the central Caribbean early next week. However, such long term models are highly inaccurate and the forecast is revised every 12 hours based on ever-changing wind, barometric pressure, and other environmental factors.

Should winds increase to 39mph, it will be upgraded to a tropical storm and named Chantal.