(Accuweather) – Tropical Storm Cristobal, the third named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, formed over the southwestern Gulf of Mexico Tuesday afternoon. The newly-formed Cristobal continued unleashing torrential rainfall across portions of Mexico and Central America on Tuesday, threatening serious flooding and mudslides.
As of early Wednesday morning, the storm was making landfall near the borders of Mexico states of Tabasco and Campeche, with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph. Tropical Storm Warnings were in effect for Campeche to Puerto de Veracruz in Mexico, with tropical storm conditions already occurring in portions of the warning area.
With the upgrade to tropical storm status, a new record has been set for the Atlantic basin. Cristobal has now become the earliest occurrence of a third named system in the Atlantic basin during any hurricane season in recorded history. The 2016 season previously held the record for the earliest-ever third tropical storm, and it was Tropical Storm Colin, which formed on June 5, that helped that year go down in the history books.
The name Cristobal was most recently used in 2014. That year, Cristobal did not form until late August. The same list of names is used every six years unless a storm is unusually strong or deadly and it’s subsequently retired. READ MORE
