Hurricane season: Rush hour in the Atlantic
The season’s third hurricane imminent; eighth tropical storm likely.
As of 11 a.m. Wednesday, Tropical Storm Gaston is just a few puffs away from becoming the season's third hurricane.
Its peak winds were clocked at 70 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center, just 4 mph shy of the hurricane threshold.
About halfway between the African coast and the Caribbean islands, Gaston's future is not particularly bright, according to forecasters.
It should soon become a weak Category 1 hurricane, then encounter an unfavorable environment. It eventually could grow into a Category 2, with peak winds of 105 mph, but right now poses no threat to land.
Meanwhile, a disturbance near the Leeward Islands and not far from Puerto Rico has an 80 percent chance of becoming Hermine, the eighth named tropical cyclone of the year – one with winds of at least 39 m.p.h. -- during the weekend.
The surge of traffic is not surprising. As Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist who is the hurricane center's official spokesman noted, the period from mid-August through early October is the season within the season.
That is when the "Cape Verde" tropical storms tend to develop, growing from waves bounding of the African west coast.
More than 95 percent of all major hurricanes, those with winds of at least 111 mph, have formed from mid-August on.
The shearing winds that rip apart incipient tropical storms tend to weaken in August. Plus after months of having the sun beam its might directly over them, the tropical waters are warm, ripe, and ready to provide fuel for storms.
That more storms are coming is almost a certainty; the question is whether the United States will continue to enjoy a period of record hurricane luck.