'Arlene' Is born, how long till 'Bret'? by Rob McElwee
‘Arlene’, the first tropical storm of the year is expected, to hit Cuba and the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean, and may even strike the U.S this weekend.
The storm was created from a low pressure system which sat over the warm Caribbean waters over the past week before picking up enough moisture and energy to start spinning into a storm before it started to move north.
Earlier in the year you may re-call that we reported on the coming hurricane season and on how active it is forecast to be. The 2005 hurricane season is expected to be another active one, with 15 named storms expected, 8 of which are expected to turn into hurricanes, according to a team of scientists at Colorado State University.
According to the Miami-based US National Hurricane Centre the storm is churning northwards at 8mph, with wind up to 40mph at the moment. It is currently situated 190 miles south of Cuba but will reach western Cuba by this afternoon. The track of the storm is expected to take it through the Gulf of Mexico making landfall sometime over the weekend between the Florida-Alabama border and New Orleans. Florida should not be directly hit by this storm as no first storm in history ever has.
Arlene has been described as ‘poorly organised’, with the centre detached from the area of worst weather. The heaviest rain and strongest winds were 150-200 miles east of the centre, therefore on target for Florida.
After heavy thunderstorms over the last week some rivers across Florida are already 1-2 feet above normal and at bursting point, while others have already burst their banks and have caused minor flooding, so far. Additional rains from Arlene could cause some more flooding, and with the storm typically dumping 10 inches of rain in its northeast quadrant, prospect don’t look too good for the low lying areas around the effected rivers.
Last year, the first named storm of the season was Tropical Storm Alex, which formed on August the 1st, some 6 weeks later than Arlene. It later became a hurricane and came within 9 miles of the Outer Banks in North Carolina.
Within weeks, Florida was struck by Hurricane Charley, the first of four hurricanes to hit the state last season. It was followed by hurricanes Frances, Ivan and Jeanne. The four hurricanes damaged one out of every five homes in Florida. The storms caused about 130 deaths in the U.S. and are blamed for a total $22 billion in damage.
Arlene is not expected to intensify to hurricane status, which would be signalled by winds reaching 75mph.
We will only have to wait and see how long it is until the next tropical storm forms behind Arlene to give us an idea of how active this season will be and how far down the alphabet we will get this year…..
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