Bermuda residents were preparing Monday for the arrival of Tropical Storm Gert, though the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast only 2.5 to 7.5 centimeters of rain for the isolated British island. Gert, the seventh named storm of this year's Atlantic hurricane season, was moving north at 22 kilometers per hour and had maximum sustained winds of 95 kph. The storm, which formed Sunday afternoon, is expected near or just east of Bermuda on Monday. At 1200 GMT, the storm was centered about 160 kilometers southeast of Bermuda, and is expected to remain far off the U.S. east coast. South of Gert, a trough of low pressure located about 650 kilometers north-northeast of the Caribbean islands is generating rain and thunderstorms. U.S. forecasters said Sunday that the system has about a 30 percent chance of becoming a tropical cyclone during the next two days.
