MIAMI, (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Jose formed near Bermuda yesterday, becoming the 10th named storm of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season, U.S. forecasters said.
Jose looked set to be short-lived and to have little impact on land. But the U.S. National Hurricane Center said another tropical weather system was revving up off the coast of Africa, posing a bigger potential threat for later this week.
At 8 p.m. EDT (midnight GMT), the Miami-based hurricane center said Jose was 125 miles (205 km) north-northwest of Bermuda and churning northward over the central Atlantic Ocean.
The storm was packing top sustained winds of 45 miles (75 km) per hour and little change in strength was expected before it headed out further to sea on Monday.
Weather watchers were also keeping an eye on Sunday on a cluster of showers and thunderstorms associated with a tropical wave hundreds of miles south of the Cape Verde islands off West Africa.
In an updated forecast on Sunday night, the hurricane center said the system had a “high” or “near 100 percent” chance of becoming a tropical cyclone within 48 hours.
If the system becomes a tropical storm it will be named Katia but it was too soon to gauge its possible threat to the U.S. East Coast or energy interests in the Gulf of Mexico with any confidence.
