Hurricane Bertha (2008) classified as a tropical depression by 06:00 UTC on July 3, located about 255 miles (410 km) south-southeast of Cabo Verde. The NHC noted that global modelling suggested the possibility of tropical development over a week prior, a "remarkable achievement" at the time. The storm's cloud pattern continued to coalesce, and it was upgraded to Tropical Storm Bertha six hours later. On the southern periphery of a mid-level ridge over the open Atlantic, Bertha moved swiftly west-northwest to northwest for several days. Despite being embedded within an environment of low vertical wind shear, the storm passed over ocean temperatures near
Hurricane Dolly (2008) from some of its rigs, and the Rowan Companies also evacuated one of their eight oil rigs in the Gulf. Also on July 21, Chevron announced that it was evacuating some of its workers from its oil rigs in the Gulf, but did not disclose how many were removed. On July 22, BP announced the evacuation of non-essential personnel from two of its rigs, and on July 23, Petróleos Mexicanos evacuated 66 people from one of its rigs. In spite of this, oil production was not expected to be affected by Dolly. In Texas, Governor Rick Perry activated 1,200 members