Rare January hurricane moving closer to the Azores

Usually, warm water is a catalyst for such a storm, yet the ocean under Alex is now registering at only 68 degrees.

Alex has become a hurricane in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, making it just the second hurricane on record to form in that basin during the month of January.

Alex is expected to produce total rain accumulations of 3 to 5 inches over the Azores through Friday, with possible isolated maximum amounts of 7 inches. The National Hurricane Center warned Azores that the heavy rainfall and wind can cause life-threatening mudslides and risky flooding along the shores.

Alex is the first January hurricane to form since 1938 and the first to occur in this month since Alice of 1955 according to the National Hurricane Center. An El Niño-related tropical storm formed south-west of Hawaii last week.

Alex formed only days after a rare event in the Pacific. Several warnings have been issued for the mid-Atlantic region off the coast of Western Europe, especially for the Azores islands – an autonomous region of Portugal.

It has been almost four decades since a winter storm in the Atlantic earned a name, and the National Hurricane Center went a step further Thursday, upgrading Alex to a hurricane.

The formation of a hurricane in the Atlantic in January provides a reminder for the insurance and reinsurance sector that weather and meteorology can be unpredictable and seasons can be extended, if conditions are right. The storm has a distinct eye and tropical characteristics, they said.

Scientists have linked the storms to powerful winds and high sea surface temperatures resulting from an unusually strong El Nino phenomenon this year.

It is the fourth known storm to arrive in the first month of the year since forecasters began keeping track in 1851. On Thursday morning, Alex had made a complete transition into a hurricane.