Hurricane Cristobal: A category 1 storm seen passing Bermuda

Hurricane Cristobal centered about 425 miles west of Bermuda on Wednesday, where a tropical storm watch is in effect and heavy rain is likely, the National Hurricane Center said.

Hurricane Cristobal is expected to pass well west of Bermuda on Wednesday, where a tropical storm watch is in effect and heavy rain is likely, the National Hurricane Center said.

Centered about 425 miles (685 km) west of Bermuda, Cristobal was moving north at 12 miles per hour (19 km per hour) with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph), the NHC said. It is seen turning northeast with a gradual increase in forward speed over the next two days.

"Cristobal has a large wind field. Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 60 miles (95 km) from the center and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 205 miles (335 km)," the hurricane center said in an advisory.

The hurricane is expected to produce an additional one to two inches (2.5 to five cm) of rain over Bermuda, and some strengthening of its winds was possible during the next day or so, the NHC added.

Cristobal has already caused dangerous coastal conditions from the eastern U.S. seaboard to Bermuda, a British territory some 640 miles (1,030 km) off the North Carolina shore.

The NHC said swells generated by the hurricane were affecting Bermuda and parts of the U.S. coastline from North Carolina to the mid-Atlantic states. It said they would spread north to southern New England on Thursday, and were "likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions."

Cristobal, a Category 1 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, is the third named storm of this year's Atlantic hurricane season. It soaked parts of the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands earlier this week, after drenching Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico last weekend.

Forecasters this month downgraded their outlook for the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season, predicting below-normal activity with seven to 12 named storms, with no more than two reaching major hurricane status. A major hurricane is considered to be Category 3 or above with winds hitting at least 111 mph (178 kph).

Separately, the NHC said on Wednesday that shower and thunderstorm activity associated with a weak low pressure area over the northwestern Gulf of Mexico had increased during the past few hours.

Some additional development was possible before the system moves inland over south Texas and northern Mexico on Thursday, it said, adding that a U.S. Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft was scheduled to investigate the system on Wednesday if needed.

It also said a tropical wave several hundred miles east of the Lesser Antilles was producing "disorganized cloudiness and showers," and it said that system is expected to move westward across the Caribbean Sea during the next few days.

"Environmental conditions could become favorable for some development by early next week in the western Caribbean Sea or southern Gulf of Mexico," the NHC said. (Reporting by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Eric Beech)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Hurricane Cristobal: A category 1 storm seen passing Bermuda
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0827/Hurricane-Cristobal-A-category-1-storm-seen-passing-Bermuda
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe