Map: Tracking Hurricane Nigel – New York Times

Nigel was a Category 1 hurricane in the Sargasso Sea Monday morning ET, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The hurricane maintained wind speeds of 80 miles per hour. Follow our coverage here.

Tropical storm-force winds, which have sustained speeds of at least 39 mph, usually arrive when weather conditions begin to deteriorate, and experts say the estimated time of arrival is a good deadline for completing storm preparations and evacuating if required.

Nigel is the 14th storm to form in the Atlantic Ocean in 2023.

In late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that there would be between 12 and 17 named storms this year, an “almost normal” amount. On August 10, NOAA officials revised their estimates upward, to 14 to 21 storms.

There were 14 named storms last year, after two very busy hurricane seasons in the Atlantic, when forecasters ran out of names and had to resort to standby lists. (30 named storms formed in 2020.)

This year is characterized by an El Niño pattern that arrived in June. The intermittent climate phenomenon can have widespread impacts on weather around the world, and typically hinders the formation of Atlantic hurricanes.

In the Atlantic Ocean, the El Niño phenomenon increases the amount of wind shear, or the change in wind speed and direction from the ocean or land surface to the atmosphere. Hurricanes need a calm environment to form, and instability caused by increased wind shear makes these conditions less likely. (The El Niño phenomenon has the opposite effect in the Pacific region, reducing the amount of wind shear.)

Meanwhile, rising sea surface temperatures this year pose a number of threats, including the potential for increased storm power.