Rare tropical system being monitored in Atlantic by National Hurricane Center

The U.S. National Hurricane Center is tracking the system, which was about 425 miles (684 kilometers) west-southwest of Bermuda on Thursday, and gives it a 30 percent chance of becoming at least a subtropical storm by early next week.

“Although the storm does not now have any tropical characteristics, the National Hurricane Center is monitoring it for possible development into a subtropical storm later this weekend or next week”.

The first name on the 2016 list of names for the Atlantic is Alex.

The only named storm in January to make an impact on a land mass was Alice in 1954, which moved over the Lesser Antilles.

Tropical cyclone: A warm-core non-frontal synoptic-scale cyclone, originating over tropical or subtropical waters, with organized deep convection and a closed surface wind circulation about a well-defined center.

However, the low pressure system is teaming up with the El Nino weather pattern to create strong rip currents in Brevard and Volusia counties.

Storms have formed in every month, however.

Likewise, roughly once every 10 years, a tropical storm has formed in the month of December.

This weather system is being hailed as an outcome of a historically active 2015 tropical season in the Pacific Ocean. “It is unusual, but not unprecedented, for a tropical cyclone to develop in January”. Just a couple of weeks ago in late December, a tropical depression formed just north of the equator in the central Pacific. But a storm in the western Atlantic could get an early start on 2016.