Tropical Storm Gonzalo formed Wednesday in the Atlantic and could strengthen into a hurricane by Thursday as it steams west toward the United States, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
Gonzalo, the seventh-named storm of the 2020 hurricane season, is out in the middle of the Atlantic, about 1,205 miles east of the southern Windward Islands, with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph and moving west at 14 mph.
Meteorologists said the storm is compact and therefore has a wider range of potential forecast tracks, meaning it's too early to tell how the storm may intensify or weaken in the coming days.
It remains unclear whether the Florida coast or the Gulf of Mexico would eventually be affected.
For now, Gonzalo is expected to gain steam across 1,200 miles of warm ocean water and become a hurricane with 75 mph winds before crossing paths with Martinique, Barbados, St. Lucia and Grenada on Saturday.
Tropical Storm #Gonzalo has formed over the tropical Atlantic Ocean. Please refer to the Tropical Cyclone Update for more info: https://t.co/k5cRXbtKv2 pic.twitter.com/GMFnuCSjBA
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) July 22, 2020
From there, the five-day track by The Weather Channel predicts Gonzalo will weaken slightly and move northwest into the eastern Caribbean Sea by Sunday, squeezing between South America and the islands of Puerto Rico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic by Monday.
Weather watchers on the northern coast of Venezuela are also monitoring the storm’s movements closely.
Gonzalo notably arrived a lot sooner this year for a seventh-named storm than in any other year since 1953, when storms were first named. On average, a seventh-named storm does not typically come along until mid-September, according to The Weather Channel. The previous record was set by Gert on July 24, 2005, during the busiest hurricane season on record.
So far this year, Cristobal, Danielle, Edouard and Fay also set records for being the earliest named Atlantic storms of their respective place in the alphabet.
Elsewhere, the first hurricane of the eastern Pacific season formed far from land Wednesday.
The Hurricane Center said Hurricane Douglas was centered about 1,785 miles east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii, Wednesday morning with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph.
The latest graph from The Weather Channel on Douglas, which is now a Hurricane. pic.twitter.com/fEP9EM35RM
— Josh Pacheco (@Joshontheradio) July 22, 2020
It was moving to the west at 15 mph. That track would carry it toward Hawaii on Sunday or Monday, but forecasters said it was likely to weaken to a tropical depression by that point.
Another tropical wave in the central Gulf of Mexico is also moving west toward Texas and is expected to bring rainy weather to Florida through the weekend, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
A tropical storm has maximum sustained winds ranging from 39 mph to 73 mph, according to The Weather Channel. The storm becomes a hurricane when surface winds reach 74 mph or greater.
― Information provided by The Associated Press was used to supplement this report.
