The Atlantic recorded its first storm of hurricane season on Saturday after a sub-tropical storm developed northeast of Bermuda, the National Hurricane Center said.
Storm Ana developed long before June 1, when hurricane season begins. It was the seventh year in a row that a named storm developed in the Atlantic prior to the official start of the season.
By early Saturday the storm had winds of up to 45 mph and was moving slowly west at 3 mph. For subtropical storm Ana to become a hurricane, it would have to reach wind speeds of up to 74 miles per hour, which is not expected to happen, the Hurricane Center said.
Jack Beven, a senior hurricane specialist at the center, said in a forecast update that the strength of subtropical storm Ana is unlikely to change during the daytime on Saturday and that it would weaken until Saturday evening and Sunday.
Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman and meteorologist at Miami’s Hurricane Center, said subtropical storms can still have significant effects.
“They can do just as much damage and do just as much,” he said. “That probably won’t happen with this one.”
The storm was expected to drift further northeast into the Atlantic before resolving in a few days. It is not expected to reach land, the Hurricane Center said.
A storm is only named after it has reached wind speeds of at least 39 miles per hour. Although the storm formed on Saturday had wind speeds similar to a tropical storm, it was considered subtropical because of its location and wind flow, Beven said in an update.
However, the subtropical storm Ana was the first in what is expected to be a busy hurricane season.
The Climate Prediction Center said the Atlantic could have 13 to 20 named storms this year, of which six to 10 could become hurricanes. Three to five could become large hurricanes with winds in excess of 200 km / h – enough to damage well-built homes, uproot trees, and make electricity and water inaccessible for days to weeks.
“While NOAA scientists don’t expect this season to be as busy as last year, it only takes one storm to destroy a community,” said Ben Friedman, acting administrator of NOAA, the country’s climate science agency, this week.
Last year, a record 30 storms developed in the Atlantic, of which 13 became hurricanes, according to NOAA, including six that intensified into larger hurricanes, according to NOAA.
It was the highest number of registered storms, surpassing the 28 in 2005, and became the second highest number of registered hurricanes, the agency said. Last September, five active storm systems moved simultaneously across the Atlantic.
There were so many storms in the Atlantic last year that NOAA ran out of a list of 21 names for the season and had to name storms by Greek letters for the second time in the agency’s history.
The next named storm to develop in the Atlantic this year will be Bill, followed by Claudette.
