Tropical Storm Bertha Forms

The tropical wave that rolled off the African coast last week has finally been given named storm status. Tropical Storm Bertha was designated as the Atlantic Basin's second named storm just a few hours ago.

The storm is still well out to see but tropical storm watches and warnings have been posted for parts of the Lesser Antilles.

The computer forecast models indicate that system will continue on a general west northwest motion for the next several days. Some of the models do bring the system very near the United States mainland on the eastern seaboard but most agree the storm should turn to the north ahead of an upper level low pressure system before Bertha could get close enough to create any problems for the eastern seaboard.

Elsewhere across the tropical Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico things remain very quiet. In the Pacific Basin things are quite different as several tropical waves show the possibility of becoming named systems by the this time next week.