There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

SURF: Swells generated by the depression will continue to affect portions of the Outer Banks of North Carolina through this evening, causing lifethreatening surf and rip current conditions. Please consult products from your local weather office.

At 1100 AM EDT (1500 UTC), the center of Tropical Depression Fifteen was located near latitude 34.7 North, longitude 73.1 West. The depression is moving toward the eastnortheast near 14 mph (22 km/h) This general motion is forecast today, followed by a turn toward the east by Thursday. On the forecast track, the center of the depression will continue to move away from the North Carolina coast today.

Maximum sustained winds remain near 35 mph (55 km/h) with higher gusts. The depression could become a tropical storm later today or tonight. Gradual weakening is anticipated by late Wednesday. The system is forecast to become a remnant low on Thursday.

The estimated minimum central pressure is 1008 mb (29.77 inches).

epression has become better organized this morning with the center embedded in the western side of a growing area of deep convection. An earlier buoy report recorded adjusted maximum winds of 32 kt, and roughly half of the estimates show that the depression is a tropical storm. Conservatively, the winds will be held at 30 kt until we will see what the scatterometer shows this afternoon. Increasing shear is expected to limit any significant strengthening, although it does seem more likely than not that this system will barely make it to a tropical storm later today. The shear is forecast to get quite strong by tomorrow afternoon, so weakening is anticipated by then, and persistence of that shear is expected to cause the cyclone to decay into a remnant low in about 48 hours. While the initial part of the forecast is a little higher than the last one, this change is really in the noise level for intensity prediction and is only noticeable because of the tropical storm threshold.

The initial motion has turned toward the east-northeast or 060/12 kt. There is reasonable agreement among the guidance that this motion will continue through tomorrow, and then become eastward during the next 2-3 days around the northern side of the subtropical ridge, followed by a northeastward turn by day 4. Similar to the last forecast, most of the uncertainty is with the speed, rather than the direction of the cyclone. The new forecast is closer to the faster guidance and the previous NHC track prediction. Dissipation is shown at 120h, although a few models have it occuring as early as days