After an unusually calm storm season, the first turned into a hurricane.
Tropical Storm Danielle reached hurricane strength when its maximum sustained winds were recorded at 75 mph on Friday morning, but is not currently a threat to any land.
The US National Hurricane Center says the hurricane is about 885 miles (1,424 km) west of the Azores and drifting slowly west at 1 mph.
It is expected to meander through the Atlantic Ocean over the next few days, and no coastal watches or warnings are in place.
Danielle is unusually far north, but the water west of the Azores is two to four degrees above normal.
It won’t affect the UK just yet, according to Sky News weather presenter Kirsty McCabe, but could affect next weekend’s weather, which coincides with spring tides.
“It’s a combination of factors that have limited the development of tropical storms, for example, too much wind shear (i.e. when the speed and direction of the wind changes over a short distance) and the dry, dust-laden air pushing west from the Sahara Desert,” she said.
“It should be noted that the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season is mid-September, so this year’s season may have started slowly.”
August is normally the start of peak hurricane season.
However, this year there were no record storms in August and the last time this happened was in 1997.
This is despite all the major factors of a busy season – including warm water, weak winds and La Nina – which is an oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon that is the colder counterpart of El Niño.
Experts predicted it would be a more active season, and scientists now believe a lingering sheet of dry air is the reason no storms are forming.
