Hurricane Imelda reached Bermuda Wednesday night as a Category 2 storm and was expected to pound the archipelango with heavy rains and powerful winds, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.
Imelda is the ninth named storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season. It formed on Sunday in the western Atlantic and strengthened into a hurricane early Tuesday.
Hurricane Imelda forecast maps
As of 11 p.m. ET Wednesday, Imelda’s center was located about 20 miles southwest of Bermuda with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph, making it a Category 2 storm, according to the hurricane center. Imelda was moving east-northeast at 29 mph.
Imelda’s core was forecast to move across Bermuda in the early morning hours Thursday before moving away from the island later in the day, the hurricane center said.
The storm is expected to weaken to an extratropical low-pressure cyclone sometime Thursday.
Map shows the forecast path of Hurricane Imelda. / Credit: CBS News
Forecasters expect the storm to bring hurricane-force winds to Bermuda, along with heavy rainfall that could cause flash flooding, and damaging waves.
“I cannot overstate the seriousness of this threat,” said Michael Weeks, Bermuda’s minister of national security, as the storm approached. “This is not, I must stress, a passing squall.”
Anywhere from 2 to 4 inches of rain was expected across Bermuda into Thursday. A dangerous storm surge is also expected to produce coastal flooding in Bermuda along with large and damaging waves.
Swells generated by Imelda and Hurricane Humberto, farther out in the Atlantic, were also spreading to much of the U.S. East Coast. “These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” forecasters said.
A hurricane warning is in effect for Bermuda, meaning hurricane conditions are expected to occur there.
Map shows forecast wind gusts affecting the U.S. East Coast from Hurricane Imelda on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. / Credit: CBS News
Imelda follows Hurricane Humberto
Imelda comes on the heels of Humberto, which rapidly intensified to a major hurricane over the Atlantic on Saturday but is not expected to reach land. Humberto reached as high as a Category 5 on Saturday before beginning to weaken. On Wednesday morning, the sustained winds for Humberto’s remnants fell to 70 mph, below the 74 mph threshold for a Category 1 hurricane.
Hurricane Imelda and the outer bands of Hurricane Humberto as seen from a satellite on the morning of Oct. 1, 2025. / Credit: NOAA / National Hurricane Center
Forecasters said last week there was a small possibility the two systems could interact, creating what is known as a Fujiwhara effect, a rare phenomenon in which two different storms merge and become entangled around a newly formed, common center. CBS News meteorologist Nikki Nolan said that wasn’t considered a likely outcome in this case, although it wasn’t impossible, and the two storms already affected each other because of their close proximity at one point over the Atlantic.
Map shows the forecast paths for Hurricane Imelda and Hurricane Humberto over the Atlantic. / Credit: CBS News
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