Andrea in May: Early? Ends World Dry Spell

Subtropical Storm Andrea may have been an unusually early named storm for the Atlantic basin, but did you know that she ended a record worldwide drought of tropical/named storms worldwide?

'Tis so, according to My Awesome Buddy Scott @ SSEC [JessePedia], who says in his blog last week: "One noteworthy aspect of Andrea was the fact that it's formation ended the longest period recorded in the satellite era (33 days) without a tropical cyclone in any ocean basin (the last tropical cyclone was Tropical Cyclone Cliff in the South Pacific Ocean, which dissipated on 06 April 2007)."

GOES-12 WATER VAPOR WINDS SHOW ANDREA (SCOTT'S BLOG)

Looking back in history, a tropical or subtropical storm is not that uncommon in May. For the record, here's a list of February through May* named or tropical storms in the Atlantic from 1850 to 2006:

2007: May 9 - May 11: Subtropical Storm Andrea spins off Southeast Coast 2005: Dec 30 – Jan 6: Tropical Storm Zeta [WikiPedia] 2003: Apr 21 - 24: Tropical Storm Ana [WikiPedia] at sea 1981: May 06 - 09: Tropical Storm Arlene hits Cuba and the Bahamas 1976: May 21 - 25: Subtropical Storm 1 crosses northern Florida, southern Georgia 1972: May 23 - 29: Subtropical Storm Alpha crosses northern Florida and southern Georgia 1970: May 17 - 27: Hurricane Alma is a hurricane for six hours over the Caribbean south of Cuba 1959: May 02 - 6/2: Tropical Storm Arlene hits Louisiana 1953: May 25 - 6/6: Tropical Storm Alice hits Honduras, Florida Panhandle 1952: Feb 02 - 05: Tropical Storm 1 crosses southern Florida 1951: May 15 - 24: Hurricane Able near Bahamas, Cat 3 strength off NC coast 1948: May 22 - 28: Tropical storm crosses Haiti 1940: May 19 - 27: Tropical storm stays at sea 1934: May 27 - 31: Tropical storm hits Florida, South Carolina 1933: May 14 - 19: Tropical storm hits Mexico 1932: May 05 - 11: Tropical storm crosses the Dominican Republic 1908: Mar 06 - 09: Hurricane crosses northeastern Caribbean Sea islands 1889: May 16 - 21: Hurricane stays at sea 1887: May 17 - 21: Tropical storm hits Cuba, Bahamas

*Data provided by USAToday prior to 2001. I'm assuming here that storms from December through January were from the previous season and since we're talking about early season starts here, they aren't relevant. It's hard to say where to draw the line, in fact you might could include February and March with Dec.-Jan. since no tropical or named storms had ever formed in April, up until 2003.