The Associated Press
Gonzalo’s development is the latest in a string of impressive milestones claimed by the record-busy start to the 2020 hurricane season. This year has already featured the earliest C, E and F storms on record — Cristobal, Edouard and Fay — and Gonzalo just snagged its own record. The previous top spot was held by Tropical Storm Gert, which formed in the Bay of Campeche on July 24, 2005, before striking Mexico.
MIAMI — Tropical Storm Gonzalo formed Wednesday morning over the open Atlantic and is headed west toward a potential rendezvous with the Caribbean by early next week. Gonzalo is the earliest “G” storm on record in the tropical Atlantic.
According to the National Hurricane Center, Gonzalo is forecast to become a hurricane by Thursday, but it should subsequently weaken back to tropical storm status soon after that.
At the same time, a second system lurking west of Florida is also raising a few eyebrows as it drifts west into the Gulf of Mexico. The National Hurricane Center is giving that system a 50 percent chance of developing into a tropical depression over the next few days.
Gonzalo’s development is the latest in a string of impressive milestones claimed by the record-busy start to the 2020 hurricane season. This year has already featured the earliest C, E and F storms on record — Cristobal, Edouard and Fay — and Gonzalo just snagged its own record. The previous top spot was held by Tropical Storm Gert, which formed in the Bay of Campeche on July 24, 2005, before striking Mexico.
The average date of an Atlantic hurricane season’s seventh named storm is Sept. 16.
Behind Gonzalo, models are hinting that a third system, a fledgling African easterly wave, could develop after it emerges off the coast of western Africa.