Hurricane Gert was the fourth of five major hurricanes in the moderately active 1999 Atlantic hurricane season. A Cape Verde tropical cyclone, Gert formed on September 11 off the coast of Africa before heading west-northwest. It reached a peak wind speed of 150 mph (240 km/h) by September 15 over the open central Atlantic east-northeast of the Leeward Islands. It gradually curved to the northwest and later to the north, due to a weakness in the subtropical ridge created by Hurricane Floyd. Hurricane Gert passed east of Bermuda on September 21 and began a steady weakening trend at that time. It turned to the northeast, and on September 23, Gert transitioned into an extratropical cyclone to the southeast of Atlantic Canada before being absorbed by a larger storm.