Bertha fires opening shot of 2008 hurricane season

Hurricane Bertha, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, is also the first storm in recorded history to develop so far east so early in the season, according to Storm Exchange Inc., a firm specializing in weather-related risk management.Bertha was upgraded to hurricane status on July 7, when its centre was located roughly 1,250 kilometres east of the northern Leeward Islands (east of Puerto Rico), reports the National Hurricane Center (NHC). Maximum sustained winds were near 150 km-h, with higher gusts. “Some strengthening is forecast during the next 24 hours and Bertha could become a Category 2 hurricane later today or tonight,” the NHC reported in an advisory on Monday morning. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 35 kilometres from the centre and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 185 kilometres, it added.However, there is a lack of consensus among the global models with respect to the intensity forecast over the next 36 hours, the NHC continued. “The official intensity forecast leans more towards the higher shear scenario,” in which the Bertha would run into an upper-level trough over the Western Atlantic.”The closest tropical storm to develop this far east was Tropical Storm Ana in 1969, which developed 800 miles to Bertha’s west,” said Jeremy Ross, vice president of weather research and operations at Storm Exchange.”We searched the historical database and this is an unprecedented storm,” said Ross. “Nothing else comes close to developing that far east in the Atlantic in July.”