Tropical Storm Bill becomes 2nd named system of Atlantic hurricane season

June 15 (UPI) -- Tropical Storm Bill has formed off the East Coast and become the second named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season.

Bill was upgraded from a tropical depression late Monday, the National Hurricane Center said.

The storm was located about 300 miles south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and 420 miles east of Nantucket, Mass., the NHC said in an 11 am EDT advisory. It had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph and was moving northeast at 38 mph.

Bill marks the eighth time in more than 70 years that two named storms formed this early in the hurricane season, according to a tweet by Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach.

The NHC said Bill is expected to become a post-tropical low later Tuesday and dissipate by Wednesday.

Bill began as a tropical depression that rapidly developed off the coast of North Carolina on Monday and developed two weeks into the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on June 1. The first storm, Ana, formed near Bermuda on May 22.

The next two names on the list of tropical storms for 2021 are Claudette and Danny. Forecasters expect between 13 and 20 named storms this year. The Atlantic season usually peaks in August and September.