MIAMI (AP/ABC7) - Tropical Storm Leslie has formed in the Atlantic, the National Hurricane Center announced Thursday afternoon.

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The latest bulletin on Leslie says that the storm carries sustained winds of 40 mph and is moving west at 20 miles per hour.

The storm's center still sits well east of the North American coast. Its center is currently located more than 1,110 miles east of the Windward Islands, which are comprised of Dominica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada.

Leslie's formation into a named storm is the 12th of the 2012 tropical hurricane season. It's the second earliest that 12 storms have reached tropical storm status in the Atlantic.

The new storm forms just days after Isaac made landfall in southeast Louisiana as a Category 1 hurricane and then lashed the region with wind and flooding rain.