Tropical Storm Jerry forms over the central Atlantic, becoming 10th named storm this hurricane season

Tropical Storm Jerry formed Tuesday over tropical waters in the central Atlantic Ocean, the National Hurricane Center said. It is the 10th named storm of the 2025 hurricane season.

The newly developed system was far from land when the hurricane center issued its first advisory for Jerry at 11 a.m. ET. Forecasters said the storm was more than 1,300 miles east-southeast of the northern Leeward Islands, the Caribbean chain east of Puerto Rico that starts with the Virgin Islands and extends down to Guadeloupe. 

Jerry had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph as it tracked westward at 23 mph across the open ocean as of Tuesday evening, according to forecasters. It was expected to steadily strengthen in the coming days and eventually grow into a hurricane.

A tropical storm watch was in effect for the Caribbean islands of Barbuda, Anguilla, St. Barthelemy, Saint Martin and Sint Maarten.

On its forecast track, Jerry is expected to be near or north of the northern Leewards on Thursday or Friday, the hurricane center said. Although the storm isn’t currently expected to make landfall, the swells it generates will likely reach the islands on Thursday, causing life-threatening surf and rip currents, according to the latest advisory.

It is forecast to bring up to 4 inches of rain to the Leeward Islands, the hurricane center said, including the risk of flash flooding.  

Jerry developed on the heels of several Atlantic storm systems, including Hurricane Humberto and Hurricane Imelda, which emerged at the end of September. Concerns that both could strike Bermuda briefly circulated, but only Imelda ultimately brushed the coast of the island as a Category 2 hurricane, before quickly weakening on its way out to the open ocean. 

Humberto and Imelda also threatened the southeastern United States with destructive surf, causing multiple coastal homes in North Carolina’s Outer Banks to collapse.

This has been a relatively quiet hurricane season, which typically runs annually from June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. While Jerry is the 10th named storm this year, just one of the nine others — Chantal — actually made landfall in the U.S. 

When the current season began, an outlook released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicated that between 13 and 19 named storms would form in the Atlantic, with up to nine becoming hurricanes and as many as five strengthening into powerful Category 5 storms. But, as the months progressed, NOAA revised its outlook in August to predict that 13 to 18 named storms would form, including five to nine hurricanes.