The area the hurricane center gave a 10 percent chance is the one that got a name, and Tropical Storm Cristobal formed 880 miles west of the Azores on Wednesday with no hazards to land and nothing to do with Florida

The National Hurricane Center named Tropical Storm Cristobal at 1500 UTC on Wednesday, August 12, in the first advisory issued on the system by forecasters Adams and Cangialosi.

The storm is centered near latitude 36.7 north, longitude 43.0 west, about 880 miles west of the Azores. Maximum sustained winds are near 45 mph with higher gusts, and tropical storm force winds extend up to 90 miles from the center. Minimum central pressure is 1008 millibars. Cristobal is moving east at 25 mph, and the advisory expects a turn toward the east northeast and a slower forward speed later Wednesday and Wednesday night.

The advisory states that there are no coastal watches or warnings in effect. Its section for hazards affecting land reads none.

Slow weakening is forecast. The hurricane center's numbered forecast points put the storm at 35 knots by 0000 UTC Thursday and 30 knots by midday Thursday, and read dissipated at 0000 UTC Friday.

Cristobal is the third named storm of the 2026 Atlantic season, after Arthur and Bertha, neither of which became a hurricane.

Gulf Coast News, the Fort Myers newsroom, reported the naming on Wednesday morning in an item by meteorologist Jim Dickey, updated at 11:19 a.m. Eastern. Dickey writes that the storm formed over the warm water of the Gulf Stream and will move over cooler water over the next 24 hours, which will force it to weaken, and that it is not forecast to impact land as it stays over the open Atlantic.

There is something in the sequence worth carrying into the rest of the season.

On Monday evening the hurricane center's outlook carried three areas. The area it rated highest, off the Cabo Verde Islands, was given 70 percent over seven days. The area it rated lowest, listed under the heading Central Subtropical Atlantic as a trough of low pressure a few hundred miles northeast of Bermuda moving quickly eastward, was given 10 percent over both periods, with the outlook saying it would reach cooler waters and its chances would end by Thursday.

Today the hurricane center carries a system under that same heading, designated AL93, about 1050 miles east northeast of Bermuda and moving eastward at around 20 mph. That is the system that became Cristobal. The 70 percent area still has no name.

The Cabo Verde system is now the one to watch. In a special outlook issued at 10 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday by forecasters Brown and Katz, it is designated AL92, placed about 900 miles west southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands, and given an 80 percent chance of formation over both 48 hours and seven days. The outlook says a tropical depression will likely form while the system moves westward to west northwestward across the central tropical Atlantic. A third area, a tropical wave just offshore of the west African coast, carries 20 percent over 48 hours and 30 percent over seven days.

That special outlook was issued at 1356 UTC, about an hour before Cristobal was named, which is why it still carries the storm as AL93.

No tropical watch, warning or advisory is in force for Collier or Lee County.

Correction. Two Southwest Florida newsrooms reported on Monday that Cristobal was the next name on the Atlantic list. This desk published items on August 10 saying both were wrong and giving the next name as Chantal. The hurricane center has now named this storm Cristobal, which settles the question against this desk. The two newsrooms were right and this site was not. A dated note is appended to both August 10 items and the correction is logged on the corrections page.

September 10 is the climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, four weeks from Wednesday.