Every hurricane season has its own personality. The 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season is already revealing itself to be a weirdo in a hurry.
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From two early birds, to a “zombie” to Tropical Storm Debby currently drenching Florida, every storm this season has broken a record!
And that’s only the first month of the season. We have five more months to go!
Dilly-dallying Debby dumping on Florida SOURCE: NOAA
Click to expand picture!
Let’s look at the parade:
Tropical storms Alberto and Beryl were early birds with split personalities. When Alberto formed on May 19, it was the first time on record that a tropical storm started before the official season in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Four days later, Beryl began and it broke a 100-year-old record by becoming the strongest tropical storm to hit the coast of the Atlantic before the official start of the hurricane season.
Besides breaking records, both storms literally blew hot and cold. They started off as subtropical storms, a very unusual type of storm. A subtropical storm is a normal thunderstorm cluster that drifts over hot water and begins to turn tropical. It is a swirling tropical storm near the surface of the water and a cool thunderstorm higher up. Both Alberto and Beryl warmed up and eventually became completely tropical. Then they pounded the Southeast coast with heavy rains.
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Chris: The “Zombie Hurricane” wandering in the North Atlantic
SOURCE: NASA/NOAA GOES Project)
Hurricane Chris was even more unusual – in the words of AccuWeather meteorologist Rob Miller, it was a zombie! “It was alive, but it should not have been.” The first hurricane of the season formed at the same latitude as New Jersey! Never before since record keeping began in 1851 has a tropical storm formed that far north in the Atlantic this early in hurricane season. It was too far north, the waters were too cool, yet there was Chris staggering through the North Atlantic.
Now we have Tropical Storm Debby. For the first time in hurricane history, four tropical storms have begun before July 1. Unlike her three tropical partners, however, Debby has been in no hurry. She is currently lingering off the coast of Florida, generating rain and tornadoes.
The weird season of 2012 is not all bad news, however. The cluster of tropical storms has brought desperately needed rain to the drought-stricken South. Additionally, many experts are predicting an El Niño during the second half of the year. If that happens, the freaky Atlantic Hurricane season of 2012 will finally slow down.
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I live in North Carolina right on the beach...does it seem to be that we are gonna be hit by a hurricane this summer with the way the weather has been and its been such along time since we have had a bad one hit our area...Atlantic Beach, NC ...Thanks you for your answers....
I thought that if the waters were warm than the tropical storms can travel up with the same speed but the cool water slows them down. I live in Prince Edward Island and our waters are at record highs with such a hot summer. Is the hurricanes more likely to affect us due to the warm waters?
So if the el nino develops by late summer-early fall we may actually see a return to more normal, typical weather for the time of year? Would we likely see normal precipitation and temperatures this fall and winter, if so.. I may have to stock up on more snow melting salts and jackets this fall that never were used last winter. Thats not a bad thing! Im hoping things will change
Many people are hoping for the el nino (as myself) but is it really going to fix everything that this past winter messed up?
Normally an El Nino is the reverse of the type of weather we have seen for two La Nina winters. If it comes too soon after a La Nina, you are going from one extreme to another. If it arrives slowly, it heals the droughts caused by the La Nina.
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