Tropical Storm Dolly spun up southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, becoming the Atlantic’s fourth named storm of 2020, marking the third-fastest start to a storm season in more than a century. The system’s winds reached 45 miles (72 kilometers) per hour about 370 miles southeast of Halifax, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said in a statement at 12:15 p.m. local time. The storm is drifting into the Atlantic Ocean away from land in North America.
Only 2016 and 2012 produced four Atlantic storms quicker than this year in records going back to 1851, Phil Klotzbach, a storm researcher at Colorado State University, said in a tweet. The season officially runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, and two storms have already struck the U.S. Many meteorologist have predicted the Atlantic will be active this year, exceeding the long-term average of 12 storms in the six-month season.