Rare January hurricane forms in Atlantic, threatens Azores

There’s a rare subtropical storm brewing in the Atlantic…

Alex follows the oddball formation of Hurricane Pali in the Pacific, another rare January storm which came unusually close to the equator earlier this week. It should eventually turn north and pick up speed before going over the Azores on Friday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center, though residents there should start feeling tropical storm-force winds Thursday night.

Alex is just the sixth storm and third hurricane ever observed in the Atlantic Ocean during the month of January. An El Nino-related tropical storm formed southwest of Hawaii last week.

Subtropical storms have a broader wind field than a tropical storm and are generally less symmetric.

Hurricane force winds extend 25 miles from its centre, with tropical storm force winds 150 miles from its centre.

Normally, hurricanes need ocean waters that are 26C or above in order to form.

So despite the ocean water temperatures being much colder than normally needed, the anomalously cold troposphere has generated enough instability for thunderstorms to thrive and allow a hurricane to form. “Water vapor imagery shows that the upper-level trough is now west of the cyclone, with divergent flow over the center – indicative of a tropical transition”, the Miami-based center’s analysis states. A hurricane warning was issued for Portugal’s mid-Atlantic Azores Islands, where the Civil Protection Service issued a weather red alert, the highest of four warnings that indicates extreme risk, for five of the archipelago’s nine islands.

The storm is expected to dump 3 to 5 inches of rain on the islands, with 7 inches possible in isolated areas.

Such large amounts of rain will have the ability to cause landslides, which may affect roads around the islands.