Just one day ago, Tropical Storm Lee formed between the west coast of Africa and the Leeward Islands. Over the course of 24 hours, that tropical storm became a Category 5 hurricane. This is another climate-change first: Lee has set a record as the quickest system to intensify from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in Atlantic hurricane season history.

Record-hot sea surface temperatures, no wind shear and the fact that we're in peak hurricane season have come together to create Hurricane Lee.

Thankfully, we don't think Lee is coming to the west coast of Florida.  But the Bahamas and Florida's east coast will be impacted by high tides and large ocean waves as Lee slows down just east of the Bahamas before turning northward.

Will the storm make landfall in the U.S. or Canada next week? It's still too early to say, but northern New England and Eastern Canada have the highest probabilities of a landfall at this time.

The entire east coast, from Florida to Canada, will be impacted by this giant storm. There's a chance Lee could become the strongest hurricane to form in the Atlantic, Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico.  That ominous record is currently held by 1980's Hurricane Allen.

By the way, Lee is the 40th Category 5 storm to form in the Atlantic basin—which includes the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico—since records began in 1851. Sixteen of these monsters have formed since 2000, and eight of them have formed in the last seven years.

The climate has changed—and so has the frequency of Category 5 hurricanes. Hurricane Lee is a harbinger of storms to come.