Edouard forms south of Newfoundland

Tropical Depression 5 formed on Saturday morning southwest of Bermuda, then tracked northeast.  It was upgraded to Tropical Storm Edouard on Sunday night when it was located in the open north Atlantic, south of Newfoundland. 

Edouard is the earliest fifth named storm on record in the Atlantic, beating Emily (2005) by six days. The similarities end there: Emily was a long-track hurricane in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico that made landfall on Mexico twice, while Edouard is a brief messy tropical storm that won't affect land.

This storm has a very brief window to exist as a tropical cyclone... it is expected to transition to an extratropical cyclone on Monday night into Tuesday morning as it passes over much colder water temperatures and encounters strong vertical wind shear. Edouard is racing off to the northeast at nearly 40 mph!

Elsewhere in the basin, the National Hurricane Center is giving a 40% probability of a tropical cyclone developing off the coast of the Carolinas in a few days, and a 10% probability of a tropical wave developing in the deep tropics today. The model guidance has not been showing much hint of anything to be concerned about with the Carolinas system, but it's worth paying attention to. The next couple of names on this year's list are Fay and Gonzalo.

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