Hurricane Season Marches on with Tropical Storm Nicole

tropical-storm-nicole2-100929-02 — GOES-13 visible image of Tropical Storm Nicole (center, bottom) at 1432 UTC (10:32 a.m. EDT) shows the extensive cloud cover (which is also associated with a trough of low pressure) extending north into the Mid-Atlantic U.S. states.

(Image credit: NOAA/NASA GOES Project)

After a quiet few days in the Atlantic basin and Gulf of Mexico, a newly formed tropical storm is blowing across the Caribbean.

Tropical Storm Nicole strengthened from a tropical depression and was upgraded to a tropical storm this morning (Sept. 29) by the National Hurricane Center. Nicole has maximum wind speeds of 40 mph (65 kph). A system is upgraded to a tropical storm when it has winds stronger than 39 mph (63 kph).

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Andrea Thompson is an associate editor at Scientific American, where she covers sustainability, energy and the environment. Prior to that, she was a senior writer covering climate science at Climate Central and a reporter and editor at Live Science, where she primarily covered Earth science and the environment. She holds a graduate degree in science health and environmental reporting from New York University, as well as a bachelor of science and and masters of science in atmospheric chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology.