Unusual January tropical activity in Pacific, South Atlantic
BIG UPDATES 1/7/2016 3 p.m.: We now have a story on the Atlantic storm, and it mentions the Pacific storm. Please see that story for future updates.
The NHC is now commenting on the hybrid storm off the Florida coast, but there is only a 10% chance that they will name it.
In that article, a correction to what I said below: There were two Tropical Storms that formed in the Atlantic in January: "In 1978, Subtropical Storm One formed on Jan. 18., over the central Atlantic and dissipated before reaching the Caribbean. The earliest tropical storm to form in January was Storm One on Jan. 3, 1938."
Additionally, Tropical Storm Pali has been named in the Pacific from the tropical depression discussed earlier. Pali is now the earliest forming Tropical Storm in the Central Pacific (Nadine 1978 formed as a depression on Jan. 6 but wasn't upgraded to a storm until Jan. 10).
UPDATE 1/7/2016 10 a.m.:
The storm southwest of Hawaii still looks very healthy on satellite and has been declared as a Tropical Depression (One-C) by the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (at 4.0 latitude, lower than Hurricane Ekeka 1992 mentioned below). They project it to be upgraded to a Tropical Storm later today then meander in the general area.
The potentially-subtropical/hybrid system off the coast of Florida is also looking well this morning, and showing a lot of lightning. (But this is normal; hybrid or subtropical systems typically contain more lightning than strong hurricanes).
If it is named, it will be Alex, according to Brian McNoldy; that is the first name for 2016 Atlantic storms. Only one tropical storm has ever formed in the Atlantic in January - a hurricane in 1938 (Tropical Storm Zeta technically formed at the tail end of the record 2005 Hurricane Season, on Dec. 30).
The low pressure off the coast of Brazil no longer has any storms around its center and neither the Brazil Met Service nor the Brazil Navy are tracking it as a tropical depression today (Navy maps from last night and this morning shown below):
I also neglected to mention Tropical Cyclone Ula yesterday, which is east of Australia, but they are in their tropical cyclone season down there.
ORIGINAL BLOG 1/6/2016: Yes, it's Jan. 6, but there are three areas of interest in the worldwide Tropics: a potential hybrid storm off the coast of Florida, a large storm near the equator southwest of Hawaii and a rare cyclone off the South American coast.
First, check out this large area of storms southwest of Hawaii. It's so close to the equator that it barely shows up on the North Pacific surface map from NOAA!
Whether or not it will be named by the NOAA Central Pacific Hurricane Center remains to be seen, but they are giving a 50 percent chance of development as of this afternoon.
If it were named, I assume they would use the 2016 names list, making it Tropical Storm Agatha.
There have only been a handful of other Tropical Storms to ever develop in the Central Pacific in January (surprise, surprise, NOAA says they were all in El Nino years).
The only one that we have good data on is Hurricane Ekeka 1992 -- which was a very impressive storm, actually becoming a Category 3 storm (in February, it reached Category 2 in January), originally developed at about 5 degrees latitude... today's system appears to be about 4 degrees.
Both the GFS (above) and European (ECMWF) models turn it into a low pressure system and the GFS has sustained winds as high as 65 mph. The storm should move off to the northwest.
Next up, a low pressure system spinning off of the coast of Brazil. The Brazil meteorological service describes it (loose translation) as a "Low Pressure (Tropical Cyclone) near the coast of Bahia."
As you know, there have only been a handful of tropical cyclones in the South Atlantic in recorded history (the most famous of which was arguably Cyclone Catarina in 2004; a weaker Tropical Storm Anita in 2010 (read my blog about both here). MetSul.com describes today's system as a "Subtropical Storm."
And last but not least, the storm off the Florida coast. The first view below is from about noon; the second is from 3 p.m. Our story on it says:
According to AccuWeather Expert Senior Meteorologist Dan Kottlowski, a rapidly developing storm will sweep northeastward from the Florida Straits to the western Atlantic Ocean spanning Wednesday to Friday. "Waters are not warm enough to support rapid tropical development," Kottlowski said. "But the system has the look of a hybrid storm."
And in the "honorable mention" department, a strong (non-tropical) storm is currently moving over the Aleutian islands (you can see both it, and the storm 1500 miles southwest of Hawaii) on this satellite animation.
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