TS Bertha, Heading East, Claims Record For Longest-Lived July Tropical Storm On Record - Reuters

[hatrack]

MIAMI - Tropical Storm Bertha strengthened on Wednesday as it moved eastward across the Atlantic, away from the British colony of Bermuda and over open ocean, the US National Hurricane Center said.

The storm, which for a while became the 2008 Atlantic storm season's first hurricane, raked Bermuda with stiff winds and heavy rains on Monday. It was expected to turn to the southeast and then northeast over the coming days.

Bertha formed near the Cape Verde islands off Africa on July 3 and is already the longest-lived July tropical storm since records began in 1851, a potentially ominous signal that this six-month Atlantic hurricane season could be a busy one. It still has a number of days of life in it before it reaches cooler waters in the northern Atlantic and fades away, the Miami-based hurricane center said.

By 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), Bertha was around 380 miles (610 km) northeast of Bermuda and moving eastward at 3 miles per hour (6 km per hour). Its top sustained winds had increased to 70 mph (110 kph), a shade short of the 74 mph (119 kph) threshold at which tropical storms are reclassified as hurricanes.

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http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49401/story.htm

[PBS Poll-435]

1. August is going to be BUSY

[kestrel91316]

2. Just so long as the next week stays calm in NOLA..........that's all I ask.....

[PBS Poll-435]

3. Should be fine.

There are a couple areas of activity in the Atlantic, but neither looks to have a possibility of disrupting anything.