CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — A new tropical cyclone spawned overnight Friday and became Tropical Depression 05W into Saturday.

But weather forecasters on Guam said the storm was no imminent threat to any land masses except for the far northern Marianas islands.

“We won’t get much, and not Guam specifically,” said Paul Stanko, senior forecaster for the National Weather Service on Guam. The storm will pass far enough north of Guam and Saipan that the latter “may get up to an inch of rain” if the outer feeder bands graze it. “It would be at the very edge of anything.”

The sparsely-populated islands well to the north of Saipan, “we’re more worried about,” Stanko said.

The still-developing storm swirled 300 miles northeast of Saipan at midnight Saturday, churning west at 16 mph with 29 mph sustained winds and 40 mph gusts.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecasts 05W to begin curving northeast toward Iwo To, packing 81 mph sustained and 98 mph gusts at its center as the eye passes five miles northeast of Iwo at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

If it becomes the Pacific’s fifth named tropical storm and fourth typhoon of the season, it would be named “Usagi,” the Japanese word for rabbit.

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