Tropical Depression 22 is on the cusp of tropical storm strength, the National Hurricane Center said Friday.
The depression is forecast to reach tropical storm status sometime on Friday. If so, it could be named Beta as forecasters move into letters of the Greek alphabet for storm names.
The final official name in the 2020 list, Wilfred, was claimed by a system in the eastern tropical Atlantic. The NHC then named Subtropical Storm Alpha off the coast of Portugal.
Impacts to Louisiana from the Gulf system remain uncertain, as the storm's path is complicated by the forecast of weak steering currents after the weekend that would leave the system meandering in the southern Gulf, possibly as a hurricane by Monday.
The NHC says there is an increasing risk of heavy rainfall and flooding along the Texas coast from Sunday into the middle of next week.