Tropical Storm Gert Has Formed North of the Bahamas; Likely to Stay Well East of the Carolinas This Week

Jonathan Belles
Published: August 13,2017
Tropical Storm Gert has formed a few hundred miles north of the Bahamas and is likely to strengthen further well off the U.S. East Coast into early this week.

Current Storm Status

Gert is the seventh tropical storm and eighth tropical cyclone of the Atlantic Hurricane Season. Only three other years have had seven or more tropical storms by August 13th: 1936, 1995, and 2005.
Relatively low vertical wind shear and warm ocean temperatures should allow this system to undergo some modest strengthening in the near term before stronger winds aloft arrive in a couple of days.
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The good news is that this system will be no direct threat to either the United States or Bermuda as it moves north and then northeast early this week.
That is because it will be sandwiched between the western periphery of high pressure in the central Atlantic and an incoming cold front across the eastern U.S.

Projected Path and Intensity

Tropical Storm Gert will take the alleyway in between those large-scale weather systems and only be a threat to mariners.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic, the National Hurricane Center has highlighted a new area of interest near the coast of Africa for a medium chance of development in the next five days.
This system will bear watching as it moves west-northwest through the week ahead toward an atmospheric environment that could be hospitable to development.
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Check back with us at weather.com for the latest on this, and everything in the tropics this hurricane season.

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