After A Weird Peak Hurricane Season Calm, Atlantic Ocean Getting Busy.

Hurricane Gabrielle has a classic hurricane look
in a satellite photo taken this afternoon

A very odd spell with no tropical storm activity at the peak of hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean is over, big time. 

There's a strong hurricane out there now, and there's two more wannabe hurricanes or tropical storms bubbling out there. 

Luckily, there's no real threat to the United States coastline, at least for several days at least. 

Let's go to the hurricane first.

HURRICANE GABRIELLE 

Highest sustained winds in Hurricane Gabrielle reached 120 mph late this morning as it headed slowly northward from a position about 180 miles southeast of Bermuda. 

This qualifies Gabrielle as a major hurricane, because major hurricanes need winds of at least 111 mph. 

It's only the second hurricane of the season, given we had that long quiet period. The trend this year is either big hurricane or wimpy little tropical storms.  All the storms except Hurricane Erin were pretty wimpy, pretty brief tropical storms. 

The exception was Hurricane Erin, which reached Category 5 status in August, them passed well off the U.S. East Coast. It was big enough to cause coastal flooding and beach erosion and dangerous surf, but it thankfully missed us. 

Gabrielle will miss us, too. 

It began its first few days as a wimp struggling with dry air and strong upper level winds. It could have ended up as another lame, small tropical storm.  But in the past three days or so, Gabrielle has really blossomed into a powerhouse. It escaped the dry air, strong overhead winds slackened and warm water fueled the storm.

On satellite pictures today, Gabrielle was a classic looking strong hurricane. It had a distinct eye, with a symmetrical swirl of dense clouds around that center.  It looks like Gabrielle has a chance to strengthen for a few more hours this afternoon and tonight before a weakening trend sets in. 

It'll start accelerating to the northeast and east tomorrow after throwing some gusty outer showers at Bermuda. It's no threat to land, except to the Azores in the eastern Atlantic. It might still be a hurricane when it gets near those islands Thursday night or Friday morning. 

Gabreille will start a weakening trend tomorrow as it encounters colder ocean water and stronger upper level winds 

It will have turned into a nontropical but still powerful storm northwest of Spain by Saturday. The storm could menace the UK as a former hurricane toward Sunday, but we're not sure yet. 

The United States will, like in the case of Erin, see some rough surf and rip currents because of Gabrielle, but that's it for us. But there's other things starting to stir out there.

OTHER SUSPECTS

An area of showers and storms in the central tropical Atlantic is slowly getting better organized, and forecasters think it will develop into Tropical Storm Humberto late this week as it heads northwestward. 

No promises yet, but it's beginning to look like wannabe Humberto might very roughly follow the tracks of Erin and Gabrielle and stay far away from the U.S. East Coast. We'll get a better confirmation of whether or not this is true later in the week, but so far I'm not too worried about this one. Even it develops into a full-fledged hurricane, which seems very possible.

There's another disturbance west of wannabe Humberto that's currently closer to the northern Leeward Islands. It's possible it could turn into Tropical Storm Imelda somewhere over the southwest Atlantic Ocean east of Florida, maybe in the Bahamas. 

Because this one will end up so much closer to the U.S. if it starts to develop late this week, as forecasters expect. Wannabe Imelda could turn into a threat if it develops starting late this week. Nobody is sure on this one yet.  It's nothing to worry about yet, but people in Florida and the East Coast  out to monitor this baby starting this upcoming weekend.