Alex ‘remarkably’ becomes a hurricane

After our snowy and cold weather the last few days, the last thing you would expect to hear from a meteorologist is this: we have a named storm in the Atlantic, and its name is Alex.

As of 4 p.m. ET on Thursday, Hurricane Alex had sustained winds of 85 miles per hour and was located 350 miles south of the Central Azores Islands, which is a Portuguese territory. Hurricane Alex, which the National Hurricane Center had previously dubbed a tropical storm, was upgraded to hurricane status Thursday morning when a small eye formed at its center.

The hurricane center said that colder temperatures in the upper atmosphere likely led to atmospheric instability that fueled Alex’s intensification.

Storm Alex is moving north-east and is expected to hit the Azores on Friday, prompting a hurricane warning.

Subtropical storms have a broader wind field than a tropical storm and are generally less symmetric. Sea surface temperatures typically need to be 80 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer to support tropical systems, but SSTs near Alex are only about 68 degrees. A January subtropical storm formed in 1978, a tropical storm in 1951 and a hurricane in 1938. “The unusually warm waters for Alex were due, in part, to the high levels of global warming that brought Earth its warmest year on record in 2015”. The heavy rain “could produce life-threatening flash floods and mudslides” and a storm surge is expected to yield substantial coastal flooding.

On average, the first named storm in the Atlantic does not occur until July 9.

NHC’s Forecaster Pasch said “Remarkably, Alex has undergone the transformation into a hurricane”. A tropical storm reportedly forms before June about once every 10 years, which is the same rate for postseason formations.

Alex won’t have any direct impact on the weather in the United States, but tropical systems do have a way of indirectly impacting the weather down the line.