Topic: Atlantic Hurricane Season 2007

[John Allen]

Thats right its nearly time for open hurricane season, although that is not the reason for this post.

Tropical Storm warning is in effect for the florida coastline for SubTropical Storm Andrea. This is the first named storm of the season and is a month early: could it be a sign of things to come? Quickly summarising the forecast and analyses of the storm intergrity of the convection and banding structure was good, however near stationary behaviour and low SST in situ have forced the convection to gradually disapate, and the system to slowly weaken within the next few days. The system is expected to make landfall and cause a couple of inches of rain. Winds currently are 40 knots(observed).

[Mike]

Just on this subject...if SSTs are an indicator to whether hurricanes form earlier or later, would this then add to the theory that SSTs temps are rising due to global climate change? 

In the past hurricanes following similar track paths usually do not initiate again for a period of time because the first hurricane has 'used up' the energy available in the sea - that's a commonplace explanation I hear - hence following depressions don't gather momentum due to lack of fuel to strengthen.

But as in last year's season (2006/7) they had a record number of systems following similar track paths and were significantly rated higher than their predecessors..  So if warm SSTs are the fuel for hurricanes where are these systems gathering their fuel from to become so intense within such a short timeframe of save for two week periods or less.  It's a general concensus that depressions take at least a week or two to rate hurricane status, but as we have seen there were systems following each other within a month period!

Whether or not it has to do with subtropical jets, mid-lat winds or simply an abundance of warm ocean temps - I'd like to find out why there were so prevalent so often.


Mike