It may seem a paradox: Tropical Storm Ana arrived before the June 1 start of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season even though experts offer a slower-than-normal outlook.
James Franklin, the top hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center, said it’s not “terribly unusual” for storms to spin up in May. “We see one about every six years on average,” he said.
Of the 21 early starting seasons in the past century, 11 ended up being busy, six were average and four were slow. While most of the early starts have been in May, in 1992 and 2003 the first storm arrived in April.
This year, AccuWeather calls for eight named storms, including four hurricanes. Phil Klotzbach and William Gray of Colorado State University forecast seven named storms and three hurricanes. And Tropical Storm Risk predicts 11 named storms, including five hurricanes. The average is 12 named storms; six of which are hurricanes.
They attribute the good news to ElNiño, the weather pattern that inhibits storm formation.
“I discovered that in many years featuring a moderate to strong El Niño, there was an early season storm in either May or June – then nothing until August,” said Dan Kottlowski, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather, the online weather site.
Ana emerged off the east coast of Florida on May 7 as a subtropical storm and strengthened into a tropical storm two days later. It hit near Myrtle Beach, S.C. on Sunday, drenching the region with heavy rain.
Experts say there’s no correlation between an early start and South Florida’s odds of getting hit.
“There’s probably not enough cases of early starts to draw a statistical correlation,” said meteorologist Robert Molleda of the National Weather Service in Miami.
One of those seasons with an early start was 1992, when the first system popped up in April and Category 5 Andrew slammed Miami-Dade County in August.
Some other notable early seasons: In 1948, two hurricanes hit South Florida, one near West Palm Beach and the other Miami. In 1935, the “Yankee Hurricane” hit Miami Beach, and in 1933, one hurricane hit Jupiter and another the Treasure Coast. All of those seasons started in May.
Three early starting seasons opened with a hurricane.
In May 1970, the first storm was Hurricane Alma, which downgraded into a tropical depression and rolled over Central and North Florida.
In May 1951, Category 3 Hurricane Able looped around the Atlantic, narrowly missing both South Florida and North Carolina. And in 1938 a hurricane developed in January and remained at sea.
Early starting seasons in the past 100 years:
2015: Tropical Storm Ana, May 7-10
2012: Tropical Storm Alberto, May 19-22; Tropical Storm Beryl, May 26-30
2008: Tropical Storm Arthur, May 31-June 1
2007: Subtropical Storm Andrea, May 9-11
2003: Tropical Storm Ana, April 20-24
1992: Unnamed subtropical storm, April 21-24
1981: Tropical Storm Arlene, May 6-9
1978: Unnamed subtropical storm, Jan. 18-23
1976: Subtropical Storm One, May 21-25
1972: Subtropical Storm Alfa, May 23-29
1970: Hurricane Alma, May 17-26
1959: Tropical Storm Arlene, May 28-June 2
1953: Tropical Storm Alice, May 25-June 6
1952: Unnamed tropical storm, Feb. 2-3
1951: Major Hurricane Able, May 15-23
1948: Unnamed tropical storm, May 22-29
1940: Unnamed tropical storm, May 19-25
1938: Unnamed hurricane, Jan 3-6
1935: Unnamed tropical storm, May 15-18
1933: Unnamed tropical storm, May 14-19
1932: Unnamed subtropical storm, May 5-10
1916: Unnamed tropical storm, May13-16
