Hurricane Gabrielle maps show the forecast track of the 7th named storm of 2025 Atlantic hurricane season

Gabrielle strengthened into a major hurricane on Monday, days after forming in the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the seventh named storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center said Gabrielle’s center was expected to pass east of Bermuda on Monday night. No watches or warnings have been issued, but the NHC said those in the Azores, an archipelago in the mid-Atlantic, should monitor the Category 4 storm’s progress.

Hurricane Gabrielle forecast and path

Gabrielle was situated roughly 220 miles east of Bermuda on Monday night, tracking northeast at about 13 mph, the hurricane center said. Packing maximum sustained winds of about 140 mph, it strengthened earlier Monday into a Category 4 storm, which the center considers to be a major hurricane.

Swells generated by Gabrielle were forecast to reach the East Coast from North Carolina northward to Atlantic Canada through the early part of this week, the hurricane center said.

“These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” the center said.    

Tropical-storm-force winds extended outward some 140 miles from Gabrielle’s center, the hurricane center said. The storm is forecast to turn more to the northeast on Tuesday, the center said.

Gabrielle took shape about one week after what was historically considered the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs annually from June 1 to Nov. 30 and has in the past become most active around Sept. 10. 

Officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration initially predicted the 2025 season would be busier than usual and produce more named storms than an average year. Still, hurricane activity has so far been quieter than anticipated. 

At the start of the season, NOAA’s outlook suggested that between 13 and 19 named storms would form in the Atlantic, with as many as nine strengthening into hurricanes and as many as five becoming Category 5 storms, which are the most powerful. The agency revised the outlook slightly in August, predicting that the season would see 13 to 18 named storms, including five to nine hurricanes, two of which could be major.

Of the six named tropical storms that have developed this year before Gabrielle, only one, Chantal, made landfall in the U.S.

Alex Sundby and

Nikki Nolan

contributed to this report.