Maps show the forecast track of Tropical Storm Gabrielle, the 7th named storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season

Tropical Storm Gabrielle is expected to strengthen into a hurricane on Sunday after forming on Wednesday morning over the central Atlantic Ocean, becoming the seventh named storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season. Forecasters expect the weather system to remain over open waters for the next several days. 

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center said Gabrielle’s center is expected to pass east of Bermuda on Monday. No watches or warnings were in effect, however. 

As of Sunday morning, Gabrielle was situated roughly 455 miles southeast of Bermuda. It was tracking north-northwest at 9 mph, the hurricane center said, with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph.

Swells generated by Gabrielle were forecast to reach the East Coast from North Carolina northward to Atlantic Canada on Sunday, with swells continuing into early next week, the hurricane center said.

“These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” the center said.    

Tropical-storm-force winds extended outward some 140 miles from Gabrielle’s center, the hurricane center said. The storm will likely continue to move northwest through Sunday, the agency said, then turn to the north on Monday and northeast on Tuesday. 

Gabrielle took shape about one week after what was historically considered the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs annually from June 1 to Nov. 30 and has in the past become most active around Sept. 10. 

Officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration initially predicted the 2025 season would be busier than usual and produce more named storms than an average year. Still, hurricane activity has so far been quieter than anticipated. 

At the start of the season, NOAA’s outlook suggested that between 13 and 19 named storms would form in the Atlantic, with as many as nine strengthening into hurricanes and as many as five becoming Category 5 storms, which are the most powerful. The agency revised the outlook slightly in August, predicting that the season would see 13 to 18 named storms, including five to nine hurricanes, two of which could be major.

Of the six named tropical storms that have developed this year before Gabrielle, only one, Chantal, made landfall in the U.S.

Nikki Nolan

contributed to this report.