Tropical Storm Jerry, churning over central Atlantic, more likely to change into hurricane. Maps present its projected path.

Tropical Storm Jerry continued to churn early Wednesday over tropical waters of the central Atlantic Ocean, the Miami-based Nationwide Hurricane Heart stated, a day after it fashioned. Jerry is the tenth named storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season.

The brand new system was removed from land. The middle stated Jerry was some 890 miles east-southeast of the northern Leeward Islands, the Caribbean chain east of Puerto Rico that begins with the Virgin Islands and extends right down to Guadeloupe. 

Jerry had most sustained winds of fifty mph because it hurried west-northwest at 23 mph throughout the open ocean, in keeping with forecasters. It was anticipated to strengthen and change into a hurricane on Thursday, which means it could have minimal sustained winds of 74 mph.

A tropical storm watch was in impact for Antigua, Barbuda, Anguilla, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat, St. Barthelemy, St. Martin, Saba and St. Eustatius, Guadeloupe and the islands adjoining to it.

On its forecast monitor, Jerry’s core is forecast to be close to or north of the northern Leeward Islands late Thursday and Friday, the hurricane heart stated. It wasn’t posing any menace to southern Florida.

“On Thursday into early Friday, two-to-four inches of rain are anticipated throughout the Leeward Islands resulting from Jerry,” the middle stated. “This rainfall brings a danger of flash flooding, particularly in areas of upper terrain.”

As well as, the middle famous, Jerry-generated swells “re anticipated to achieve the Leeward and Windward Islands on Thursday, then unfold westward towards the Better Antilles on Friday. These swells are more likely to trigger life-threatening surf and rip present situations.”

Jerry developed on the heels of a number of Atlantic storms, together with Hurricane Humberto and Hurricane Imelda, which emerged on the finish of September. Issues that each may strike Bermuda briefly circulated, however solely Imelda in the end brushed the coast of the island as a Class 2 hurricane earlier than shortly weakening on its manner out to the open ocean. 

Humberto and Imelda additionally hit the southeastern United States with damaging surf, inflicting a number of coastal properties in North Carolina’s Outer Banks to break down.

This has been a comparatively quiet hurricane season, which generally runs yearly from June 1 to Nov. 30 within the Atlantic. Whereas Jerry is the tenth named storm this 12 months, simply one of many 9 others — Chantal — really made landfall within the U.S. 

When the present season started, an outlook launched by the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicated that between 13 and 19 named storms would kind within the Atlantic, with as much as 9 changing into hurricanes and as many as 5 strengthening into highly effective Class 5 storms. However, because the months progressed, NOAA revised its outlook in August to foretell that 13 to 18 named storms would kind, together with 5 to 9 hurricanes.