MIAMI (AP) – A rare January hurricane in the Atlantic is getting closer to the Azores early Friday. Hurricane Alice actually formed on December 30, 1954, but survived into January 1955.
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At 11 a.m., the center of Hurricane Alex was located 490 miles south Faial Island in the central Azores. With 75 miles per hour winds, it is barely still a Category 1 hurricane.
“It’s rare, but certainly not unprecedented”, National Hurricane Center meteorologist Dennis Feltgen said.
Alex should lost what remains of its tropical characteristics Friday and become post tropical.
A hurricane warning has been issued for the Azores.
Maximum sustained winds are around 85mph, and Alex is moving northeast at 20mph. Tropical storm warnings are in place for Santa Maria and Sao Miguel, which contains the autonomous region’s capital and biggest city, Ponta Delgada. An El Niño-related tropical storm formed south-west of Hawaii last week. 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.
Only two other hurricanes have appeared in January since forecasters began keeping records in 1851, Feltgen said. Alex is the first named storm for the 2016 calendar year. This includes Tropical Storm Ana, which began as a subtropical storm in early May of 2015, eventually transitioning into a tropical system. Storm-force winds are possible over portions of the Azores on Friday. Although these are up to 1°C above average for this time of year, they are far cooler than usually required for tropical cyclone development.
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The storm with winds nearing 85 mph formed over Portugal’s mid-Atlantic Azores Islands, which are 900 miles from mainland Europe and 2,300 miles from the United States. On Thursday morning, Alex had made a complete transition into a hurricane.
