Tropical Storm Gonzalo expected to become Hurricane
The most active part of the hurricane season is still weeks away, but experts’ predictions for a busy season appear to be holding true as Tropical Depression Seven strengthened into Tropical Storm Gonzalo.
TS Gonzalo is expected to become the first hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season east of the Lesser Antilles, but its forecast once it reaches the Windward Islands this weekend is highly uncertain.
Gonzalo is located over 1,000 miles east of the southern Windward Islands, moving west.
A Hurricane Watch has been issued for Barbados, where hurricane conditions are possible on Saturday. This means that hurricane conditions are possible within the watch area.
Cayman’s National Weather Service has also been monitoring Gonzalo’s progress. Chief Meteorologist Kerry Powery said, at this stage, the tropical storm poses no immediate threat to Cayman, and it is still too early to tell if it will.
“It’s a rather compacted system, and so a lot of environmental factors could either suppress it or strengthen it,” said Powery.
Gonzalo earliest “G”
Only about eight percent of hurricanes form in July with a majority (over 85%) occurring after mid-August. On average, the seventh named storm in a season is on September 16.
Tropical Storm Gonzalo is now the earliest “G” in a record-setting hurricane season.
Gonzalo has also made history as the first tropical storm this season to form in the so-called “main development region” of the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and the Lesser Antilles.
The storm’s early strengthening breaks a record set by Tropical Storm Gert on July 24, 2005, the busiest hurricane season on record.