Tropical Storm Gaston Approaches the Azores

By The New York Times 

A tropical storm warning was issued for parts of the Azores in the North Atlantic on Thursday as Gaston, the seventh named storm of the 2022 hurricane season, approached from the west.

As of 11 p.m. Thursday, the storm was about 205 miles northwest of the Azores, which are about 850 miles off the coast of mainland Portugal, the National Hurricane Center said. Gaston was moving east at 12 mph, with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph.

The center of Gaston is on track to move near or over parts of the Azores Thursday night into Saturday, including waves that are likely to cause life-threatening surf conditions, forecasters said. Two to six inches of rain were forecast, with exceptionally higher rainfall in the western and central Azores. The rainfall could cause landslides in flooded areas, the center said.

The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June to November, got off to a relatively quiet start, with only three named storms before September 1 and none during August, the first time since 1997. Storm activity increased in early September with Danielle and Earl forming within a day of each other.

Gaston is one of two storms currently in the Atlantic; the other, Fiona, strengthened to a Category 4 hurricane on Wednesday and moved north toward Bermuda and Canada after battering parts of the Caribbean.

In early August, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued an updated forecast for the rest of the season, which still called for above-normal levels of tropical storm activity. In it, they predicted the season — which runs through Nov. 30 — could see 14 to 20 named storms, with six to 10 becoming hurricanes that sustain winds of at least 74 miles per hour. Three to five of them could strengthen into what NOAA calls major hurricanes — Category 3 or stronger — with winds of at least 111 mph