Tropical Depression 8 Forms
Posted: (August 28, 2008 09:09 am)

Tropical Depression 8 formed in the Atlantic overnight last night approximately 355 miles east- northeast of the northern Leeward Islands. The area where it developed had been put under a HIGH RISK for development yesterday afternoon by the NHC (National Hurricane Center). So this had been something that forecasters were watching for a few days now. The waters in this part of the Atlantic are warm and shearing remains fairly low as it continues traveling to the west- northwest at 5 mph. Maximum sustained winds are at 35 mph with some higher gusts and the potential exists that this becomes Tropical Storm Hanna either later today or tonight.

The track is interesting. The trend is to continue the storm on a west- northwest track with perhaps a slight shift towards the northwest over the next couple of days. Then a gradual turn west towards the Bahama Islands is expected by the end of this upcoming weekend and into the beginning of next week. All the forecast models seem to be in pretty good agreement with this one in the short term. That's why all the lines are very close together on the models track image below. The only difference occurs later in the period where the GFS takes the storm out to sea towards Bermuda instead of turning it west towards the Bahamas like all the others do.