Tropical Storm Gordon churns over open Atlantic Ocean

MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Gordon formed over the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday and was expected to become a hurricane by the weekend before nearing the Azores Islands in about four days, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Gordon was centered about 640 miles east of Bermuda late Thursday morning and was moving northeast at 16 miles per hour. It had top sustained winds of 50 mph as it moved further out over the open waters of the north-central Atlantic.

It posed no threat to the United States or Gulf of Mexico, where U.S. oil and gas operations are clustered.

At its top projected wind speed Gordon is expected to become a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.

August and September are usually the most active months of the Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.

(Reporting by Tom Brown; Editing by Jackie Frank)