MIDWAY, Fla. (WTXL) -- Despite its battles with upper-level winds and a disorganized structure, the tropical system named Cristobal has gained enough strength to reach hurricane level.
Late Monday night, hurricane hunter aircraft found peak winds above hurricane force, allowing the storm to become a Category 1 hurricane.
Maximum winds were clocked at 75 mph as the hurricane moved slowly to the north-northeast at 2 mph. The storm was located just over 650 miles southwest of Bermuda.
After dumping several inches of rain in parts of the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, Cristobal is forecast to move more to the north and northeast in the western Atlantic. The current forecast track should take the center of the hurricane west of Bermuda before it speeds up and moves deeper into the north Atlantic later this week.
The hurricane poses no direct threat to the Big Bend region.
Cristobal is the third hurricane of the Atlantic hurricane season, already surpassing the total number of hurricanes experienced in the 2013 season in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and Atlantic Ocean.
