What was a ragged depression a few days ago has now been upgraded to a tropical storm. T.S. Dean is now setting its sights on the Caribbean by the weekend, and the current track has Dean moving closer to Puerto Rico by Sunday. Notice the third picture I have included above. You can clearly see Dean's circulation, and although the convection is still primarily contained on the southern side of the storm, Dean is starting to intensify. The second picture (infrared) shows the flare up of convection increasing on the northern side of Dean, and this is a sign that the convection is starting to become more even spread throughout the storm.

The long range forecast varies after 5 days. Some models take Dean toward the East coast, while others take it toward the Gulf. If Dean moves over the Caribbean islands it will likely incur some weakening, but the winds aloft are very favorable for Dean to remain in tact, so we'll watch Dean very closely over the next couple of days.