TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Tropical Storm Josephine has formed in the Atlantic, becoming the earliest 10th-named storm of hurricane season on record.
Josephine formed Thursday morning from Tropical Depression Eleven, which slowly organized even more overnight. The system has maximum sustained winds of 45 mph and additional strengthening is possible over the next two days.
As of 11 a.m. Thursday, Josephine was about 975 miles east-southeast of the northern Leeward Islands and moving west-northwest at about 15 mph.
The tropical storm is expected to turn north over the weekend and begin to weaken as wind shear increases. Josephine could dissipate entirely by early next week but no impacts are expected to the U.S. either way.
Josephine is the earliest “J” tropical storm on record in the Atlantic. Before this year, the earliest was Jose on Aug. 22, 2005.
Josephine is currently the only storm the Tracking the Tropics team has their eye on with no new development expected over the next five days.
However, the peak of hurricane season is still one month away and the updated forecasts from both the Colorado State University and The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration are calling for an “extremely active” season with up to 24 named storms forming. This includes the now 10 named storms so far in 2020.