Atlantic hurricane season starts late as Danielle becomes first named tempest

Vice-President Kamala Harris visits the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, last month, in what so far has been a quiet hurricane season. Photograph: Cristóbal Herrera/EPA

Tropical storm Danielle has strengthened into the first hurricane of the 2022 Atlantic Ocean season, the US national hurricane center said on Friday.

The hurricane, now about 885 miles west of the Azores in the mid-Atlantic, is packing maximum sustained winds of 75mph (120km/h) and was forecast to meander over the open sea during the next couple of days, the Miami-based federal weather forecasting center noted.

This was the first time since 1941 that the Atlantic region has gone from 3 July to the end of August with no named storm, Colorado State University researcher Phil Klotzbach said.

#BREAKING
Hurricane Danielle has become the first hurricane of the 2022 season >> https://t.co/6a6Hu37Mp3 pic.twitter.com/hVfrCEA7m3

— wdsu (@wdsu) September 2, 2022

Danielle formed as a tropical storm on Thursday as the first named storm of an unusually quiet season so far, then strengthened overnight and could mark the beginning of a buildup of giant storms in the coming weeks.

The storm is not currently a threat to any land and there are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

Hurricane Danielle has some funky, two-tailed cirrus outflow.

Funky but cool. pic.twitter.com/0vEcz3WiE7

— Dakota Smith (@weatherdak) September 2, 2022

In the north Pacific, tropical storm Javier formed overnight. Forecasters said that late on Thursday it was 210 miles south-west of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 45mph (72km/h), moving north-west at 9mph.