The National Hurricane Center has confirmed that the tropical storm Bertha has become this year’s first hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. The storm formed less than a week ago several miles off the western African shores and became a hurricane today at 5 am, ET.

The change has been discovered northeast of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean Sea, where Bertha’s wind reached the speed of 75 miles per hour, the minimum speed for which a tropical storm is considered to become a hurricane.

Experts said that it is impossible to say whether the hurricane will affect any land area, since it may unexpectedly change its trajectory, as most of these meteorological phenomena do. However, the National Hurricane Center said that at this moment Bertha is moving west-northwest at an average speed of 17 miles per hour, and is supposed to pass near the Bermuda Islands, if its trajectory stays as it is predicted.

The term hurricane is used to describe an extremely powerful tropical storm. Even though the hurricanes’ powerful winds and heavy rains can have quite a devastating effect on coastal regions, they are also one of the most important mechanisms of the atmospheric circulation, which keeps a relatively stable temperature worldwide. Hurricanes are able to perform this by carrying heat from the tropical region to colder areas.

The first tropical storm of this year was Arthur, which formed on May 31, a day before the official start of the hurricane season. Arthur showered the Yucatan peninsula, which is located in southern Mexico.