A tropical wave producing widespread disorganized showers and thunderstorms moved off the west coast of Africa on August 25.[92] After moving across the eastern and central tropical Atlantic, the disturbance encountered environmental conditions east of the Leeward Islands that were only marginally conducive for tropical cyclone development.[93] After struggling against high wind shear for several days, the disturbance was finally able to become better organized and developed into Tropical Storm Earl early on September 3.[94] A burst of deep convection occurred near Earl's center during the evening of September 5, and a Hurricane Hunters mission into the storm later that night reported that it briefly strengthened to very near hurricane strength.[95] Earl's intensity continued to fluctuate throughout much of the next day due to continued effects of westerly deep-layer shear.[96] Later that day, the shear began to quickly diminish, and Earl became better organized, strengthening into a hurricane around 00:00 UTC on September 7.[97] By 03:00 UTC on September 8, Earl reached Category 2 strength while moving northward; Hurricane Hunters data showed it to have an eye of almost 60 mi (90 km) and a fairly symmetric wind field.[98] Three hours later the hurricane attained peak sustained winds of 105 mph (165 km/h).[99] Despite being forecasted to continue strengthening into a Category 4 hurricane, Earl's inner core was repeatedly interrupted due to dry air entrainment and it fluctuated in strength the following day while passing well to the east of Bermuda despite being over very warm sea surface temperatures of around 84–86 °F (28–29 °C).[100] It briefly weakened to Category 1 strength early on September 9,[101] before rebounding to Category 2 strength with a peak intensity of 105 mph (165 km/h) sustained winds and a minimum barometric pressure of 954 mbar (28.17 inHg).