Hurricane experts at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) as well as with AccuWeather are closely monitoring a tropical system over the northern Leeward Islands that has potential to strengthen significantly and become Tropical Storm Hermine, the eighth named storm of the 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season, by this weekend. The system poses a threat to land, as well as a distinct possibility of striking the Florida Peninsula from the southwest as a hurricane, the first hurricane to make landfall in that area and from that direction since Katrina in 2005.
Hurricane Season 2016 is picking up steam, with Tropical Storm Gaston having formed in the Atlantic on Monday. Tropical Storms Fiona and Kay still linger in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (respectively), while three additional weather systems out at sea are all projected to strengthen to tropical cyclone status, and at least one expected to become the eigth named tropical storm in the Atlantic later this week.
According to recent reports from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Hurricane Center (NHC), the 2016 hurricane season is forecast to be the strongest and most active storm system experienced since 2012. Currently brewing in the Pacific is the 11th named storm of the season, while the Atlantic Ocean's sixth tropical storm churns over open waters, expected to continue on rapidly over the next 24-48 hours.
Residents living on the south and southwestern coasts of Mexico are being pummeled with tropical storms this hurricane season, and as of Wednesday evening yet another tropical depression has formed in the area and is forecast to become a tropical storm by Thursday.
After forming in the Atlantic earlier this week, Tropical Depression 2 to head west over the mid-Atlantic Ocean Monday night, with maximum winds of 35 mph.
A tropical depression has formed in the Atlantic Ocean and according to weather experts the conditions are right for the disturbance to strengthen into a tropical storm. If the depression does form into a more organized system, Tropical Depression Bertha would become the second named storm of the 2014 hurricane season.
