The National Hurricane Center on Thursday continued to watch a tropical disturbance near the Caribbean that could become a tropical depression soon.

And it could be in the Gulf of Mexico when that happens.

The National Weather Service in Mobile was watching the system on Thursday and said there are many questions about how — or if — it develops and where it goes. It’s too soon to say if or when it could affect the Gulf Coast.

But forecasters urged those along the coast to keep an eye on the situation through the weekend and into next week. It’s also not a bad idea to have your hurricane supplies in order — just in case.

The disturbance had finished battling dry air and was getting more organized on Thursday. It was spreading rain and storms over Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands on Thursday morning.

The hurricane center said the disturbance could slowly continue to organize over the next few days, and a tropical depression could form this weekend or early next week.

The problem is, it could be in the Gulf of Mexico or near the Florida peninsula when that happens.

The hurricane center urged those in the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas and Florida to keep an eye on the system going forward.

A developing tropical system is notoriously difficult to track, since it doesn’t have an organized center of circulation, but the hurricane center outlined an area that incudes the eastern Gulf and nearly the entire Florida peninsula as places to watch in the coming days.

The system has a 60 percent probability of becoming a tropical depression or storm in the next seven days. The probability has been holding at 60 percent for several days now.

A system has to have a defined center of circulation and sustained winds of at least 39 mph to be considered a tropical storm and get a name. The next name on the 2024 Atlantic storm list is Debby.

There have been three named storms so far in 2024 in the Atlantic. Two of them — Alberto and Chris — were tropical storms that hit Mexico’s Gulf Coast.

The second named storm, Beryl, briefly became a Category 5 hurricane and later made landfall as a Category 1 storm in Texas in early July.

The next update on this system will come this afternoon.