Ho-hum Tropical Storm Gert makes hurricane season history

(National Hurricane Center )
August 16, 2011|By Ken Kaye, Sun Sentinel

By failing to intensify into a hurricane, a rather ho-hum Tropical Storm Gert made hurricane season history.

It marked the first time on record that none of the first seven tropical storms intensified into a hurricane.

This bit of hurricane trivia was brought to my attention by Jim Lushine, a retired National Weather Service meteorologist.

"The previous record was six in 2002," he e-mailed me this week, while taking a break from golfing in Bend, Oregon. "In 2006 there were five named systems before a hurricane formed."

At 5 p.m. on Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center decreed that Gert has degenerated into a "post tropical low" and issued its last advisory on the system. It was 750 miles northeast of Bermuda.

Why haven't hurricanes formed yet this year?

The atmospheric factors simply haven't gelled - so far. There has been too much dry air or wind shear over the tropics, or the storms developed in a region where intensification was unlikely. Franklin and Gert, for example, popped up in the western Atlantic and aimed north into cooler waters.

Rest assured, they’ll be appearing soon, considering Aug. 15 was the start of the so-called Cape Verde season, when the most powerful storms tend to be spawned near Africa. In other words, the heart of the season is here.

"Undoubtedly, hurricanes will be forming in the next two months," Lushine said.

Overall, Gert set a pretty obscure record, particularly when you consider that prior to the satellite era, several seasons might have seen seven or more storms before one finally grew into a hurricanes.

"Before satellites, there were probably a lot of storms that we missed," said Dennis Feltgen, spokesman for the National Hurricane Center.

Still, it's interesting that the first hurricane normally develops by Aug. 10 - and that experts predict up to 10 hurricanes will emerge this year - yet the first one still isn't on the horizon.

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