Hurricane Bertha First Of Atlantic Season

MIAMI — Hurricane Bertha strengthened to a Category 3 storm Monday as it swirled in the central Atlantic, but it posed no immediate threat to land.

Forecasters expect the Atlantic season's first hurricane to head toward Bermuda. It was too early to tell whether the storm would hit the island, but residents were urged to monitor Bertha's progress.

At 11 p.m. Monday, the hurricane was located 695 miles east-northeast of the Northern Leeward Islands and about 1,085 miles southeast of Bermuda. It was moving west-northwest at about 12 mph. Maximum sustained winds were measured near 120 mph.

Daniel Brown, a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center, said Bertha was expected to stay at roughly the same intensity for the next day or two.

"Conditions aren't going to change too much over the next couple days, so it will likely remain a strong hurricane," Brown said.

The hurricane center has projected 12 to 16 named storms in the Atlantic this season, with six to nine of them hurricanes.

The U.S. has not been hit by a major hurricane since 2005, the busiest season on record, which brought a destructive triple-punch of Katrina, Wilma and Rita ashore.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs through Nov. 30.

Comments

[5150]

What's is in a name? A brand by any other name would stink, right? Big Bertha blasted the trenches in the Great War.

[darthdarcy]

"Bertha don't you come around here anymore.."

Garcia / Hunter...

[chronic]

Great, here comes another excuse for the Oil Cartel Criminal$ to raise the price of a barrel of oil AGAIN!!

[vietveter]

Any drama, like... "dude, I had a really like bad dream."

seems to be reason enough to raise prices.

Seriously: How long will the public put up with this?

[wg372702]

Hurricane season starts June 1st. Nothing unusual about this.

[jwws007]

oh no, must be global climate change. quick , send al gore money

[Gasparilla]

Nah. Rush makes much more money by denying it exists. Bertha, by the way, is the earliest storm on record to form in the area it did. Usually the Cape Verde storms do not form until late August and through September.

[robiform]

Absolutely correct, Gasparilla--if you go to the National Hurricance Center website, or if your local newspaper has a "hurricane" page on its website and click on "historical track" (or words to that effect) for Bertha, there's nothing there! And that's because, as you said, this is the earliest Cape Verde storm EVER! But, the trolls who get all their information from Rush Windbag and Faux Noise won't acknowledge global warming might be a cause of this--no sirree, Bob!

[danoj]

I don't deny global warming exists, but algore is way out there in left field on it. I don't think we have enough knowledge to say we know exactly what's happening. My weather man can't tell me for sure what going to happen this weekend, how the hell does al gore know what's going to happen a hundred years from now?