'Very rare' late-season tropical depression forms near Africa; forecasters also eye system in Central America

• The tropical depression is not expected to intensify into a tropical storm.
• Forecasters are also monitoring a weather system that's spinning over Central America.
• The next name on the list of storm names is Nestor.

Forecasters are watching a tropical depression that formed in an unlikely location for so late in the Atlantic hurricane season. 

The depression that formed off the coast of Africa on Monday is an area where formation is "very rare" for this time of the year, according to the Weather Channel.

The primary threat from the depression is the potential for locally heavy rainfall and flash flooding in the Cabo Verde Islands, according to the National Hurricane Center.  

As of 11 a.m. ET, Tropical Depression 15 had top sustained winds of 35 mph and was located about 160 miles east of the Cabo Verdes, an island nation about 400 miles west of Senegal. 

The depression is not expected to intensify into a tropical storm, the hurricane center said Tuesday.

"It is rare to have a system ramp up quickly in this part of the Atlantic this late in the season," Dan Kottlowski, AccuWeather's top hurricane expert, said.

"This is the farthest east that a tropical depression has formed in the tropical Atlantic this late in the calendar year on record,"  Colorado State University meteorologist Phil Klotzbach said.

The system should rapidly weaken, beginning on Wednesday.

Closer to home, forecasters are also monitoring a weather system that's spinning over Central America. "This disturbance and another tropical system over the eastern Pacific Ocean are expected to produce heavy rains across a large portion of Central America during the next couple of days, which could cause flooding and mudslides, especially in mountainous areas," the hurricane center said.

By late Wednesday, the disturbance is forecast to emerge over the Bay of Campeche and gradually turn toward the north. The hurricane center said environmental conditions could become a little more favorable for some development toward the end of the week when the system is located over the western Gulf of Mexico.

"Regardless of development, the system may cause a blossoming area of showers and thunderstorms over the Gulf and along the western and central Gulf Coast later this week into this weekend," AccuWeather senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said.

However, it wouldn't be until later Thursday night or Friday that any moisture from this system would stream into parts of the parched Deep South, and not until the weekend that the heaviest rain would fall, AccuWeather said.

If either the depression near Africa or the Central American system develops into a named tropical storm, it would be called Nestor.