MIAMI (AP) – Hurricane Vince formed Sunday in the far eastern Atlantic, making it the 11th hurricane of the season, forecasters said.

The Category 1 hurricane was moving away from the United States and posed no immediate threat to land, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

“It’s very far away. It couldn’t get farther away,” said Richard Pasch, a hurricane specialist at the center. “It’s headed for Spain. It’s not going to reach there. It will likely merge with a cold front.”

At 5 p.m., EDT, Vince’s center was located about 535 miles east-southeast of the Azores. Earlier Sunday, Vince formed as a tropical storm between the Azores and the Canary Islands in waters that are cooler than what is typically needed for a tropical storm, said Chris Sisko, a meteorologist at the hurricane center.

Vince appeared to be the farthest east and north that a tropical storm has formed in the Atlantic, taking shape over water of 73 to 75 degrees, below the 80 degrees usually needed for a tropical storm.

“Vince is a very odd one,” Sisko said.

The 2005 hurricane season has been the second-busiest on record. Only one other Atlantic season had more tropical storms and hurricanes since record keeping began in 1851. There were 21 in 1933.

The season began June 1 and ends Nov. 30. After Vince, only one name is left for storms this season – Wilma. After that, storms are named after letters in the Greek alphabet. That has never happened before in more than 50 years of regularly naming storms.

This season has been one of the deadliest and costliest in the United States in the last century. Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,100 people on the Gulf Coast and is expected to cause more than $34 billion in insured losses.

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On the Net:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

AP-ES-10-09-05 1808EDT

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