two days, the Bermuda Weather service said last night.

The storm, now 438 nautical miles west-southwest of the Island, was the tenth tropical depression of the 2000 Atlantic hurricane season. It formed southwest of Bermuda yesterday morning and was moving slowly to the west southwest at five knots.

Weather forecasters projected Florence would continue to move away slowly and then turn north. It is not considered a threat to Bermuda at this time.

As of 6 p.m. last night, Florence packed sustained winds of 60 knots with gusts to 75 knots. Forecasters say the storm is "pretty much drifting around'' because there are no steering winds to give it direction.

The news came as the Associated Press reported that hurricane experts thought the slow start to the Atlantic storm season was caused by an atmospheric disturbance, but were warning people not to lower their guard.

Forecasters predicted at least 11 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes this season but since June 1 there have been five named storms and two hurricanes, none of them major.

The peak of the average season arrives Sunday and the slow start has been attributed to the Madden-Julian oscillation, which has combined with a weakening La Nina to suppress hurricane formation.

"The oscillation is a tropical phenomenon that comes by several times during the hurricane season and affects high-level thunderstorm formation,'' hurricane specialist Jack Beven of the National Hurricane Centre.

"But you still can get storms at any time, and people should not let their guard down.'' He noted that a mild start to the hurricane season was not necessarily unexpected.

"You look back at last two hurricane seasons in 1998 and 1999 and we had one storm each year (by) the middle of August,'' Mr. Beven said. "All of a sudden, the switch got turned on and it was one storm after another.'' Chris Landsea, an expert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's hurricane research division on Virginia Key near Miami, agreed.

Mr. Landsea said a weakening La Nina has caused more "vertical shear'', winds from different directions and altitudes that tear apart hurricanes.

The Madden-Julian oscillation, an atmospheric wave which begins in the Indian Ocean and moves eastward, usually dissipates over the eastern Pacific.

"This year, for some reason, it has gotten into the Atlantic a bit and helped to shut things down,'' Mr. Landsea said.

But just as the wave has a phase which suppresses activity, it also has a period when it makes conditions more favourable for hurricane formation.

"The enhancing phase is showing up now,'' Mr. Landsea said.

This year's first hurricane, Alberto, whirled away in the north Atlantic to become the longest-lived August tropical storm on record, but it never threatened land.

A minor Hurricane, Debby, soaked parts of the Caribbean in late August and threw a scare into South Florida before breaking up over Cuba.

Another three named storms never reached hurricane intensity.