Gabrielle becomes a category 1 hurricane and could strengthen in the coming hours

Washington.- The United States National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported this Sunday that storm Gabrielle is now a category 1 hurricane with the prospect of intensifying and indicated that it expects it to pass this Monday east of Bermuda, where it warned of the damage that rain and wind may leave. At 5:00 PM Eastern Time, Gabrielle was about 360 kilometers southeast of Bermuda. The storm brings sustained maximum wind gusts of about 120 kilometers per hour and is expected to reach category 2 or 3 in the next two days. Although it is expected that, after approaching Bermuda, it will then head east to weaken offshore in the Atlantic, the NHC has warned of the strong swells that Gabrielle is going to leave on the US coast, from North Carolina northward.

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The meteorologists at the NHC warned last week that 60% of the cyclonic activity could still be missing after a relatively calm start to the season in the Atlantic, which runs from June 1 to November 30 and which had its climatological peak on September 10.

So far, there have been 7 cyclones this year in the Atlantic: in addition to Gabrielle, Hurricane Erin and storms Andrea, Barry, Dexter, Fernand and Chantal, which has been the only one to make landfall this year in the United States, where it caused two deaths in July in North Carolina.

The NHC is currently maintaining advisories for two weather disturbances that have the potential to become cyclones over the next week and move west towards the vicinity of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.