(Bloomberg) -- Heavy downpours are in store for the Northeast including New York from Tropical Storm Fay, which formed off the coast of North Carolina.

The National Hurricane Center said it will begin issuing advisories for the storm, the sixth of 2020, at 5 p.m. New York time. The system is moving north on a track that will take it over New England. Given the lopsided shape of the storm, New York could be in line for a soaking starting late Thursday through early Saturday, said David Roth, a senior branch forecaster for the U.S. Weather Prediction Center.

Fay will bring “heavy rain from Delaware through the northern Mid-Atlantic,” Roth said by telephone. “The first rain will probably get to New York late Thursday night into Friday morning.”

Six storms have been named in the Atlantic so far this year in a record start to the hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, said Phil Backcloth, a storm researcher at Colorado State University. While the number of storms has been on the high side, the systems themselves have been weak and short-lived for the most part.Normally, the most powerful effects from a tropical storm would come on its eastern side. Since this system is a bit lopsided, New York will still get heavy rain even as the storm passes the eastern end of Long Island before heading to Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

“The whole pattern is looking more like a comma, or it looks like an ear,” Roth said. Tropical storms and hurricanes tend to be more circular with a symmetrical structure.

(Updates odds in second paragraph.)

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