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Rare South Atlantic Hurricane Heads Toward Brazil

Posted by michael on from the batten-the-hatches dept.

jellisky writes "An unprecendented sort of weather event has been occuring recently, without much fanfare at all. A tropical cyclone in the south Atlantic is slowly drifting toward Brazil. The southern Atlantic ocean isn't exactly a hurricane hotbed, as pointed out by National Hurricane Center forecaster Jack Beven, "We know there hasn't been a hurricane in that area since at least the satellite era, the mid-60s at the minimum." The storm is a small one, though, but has estimated winds near minimal hurricane strength (74-95 mph). It's quite an interesting sight, perfect for piquing the weather curiousity that many of us have."

7 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. hurricanes in California by bobbozzo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We had the tail end of a hurricane from baja hit southern California about 2 years ago... a very rare event.
    It didn't do a whole lot of damage; many areas get 80-90mph Santa Ana winds occasionally.

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    Nothing to see here; Move along.
  2. Interesting? by OC_Wanderer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Interesting isn't a word I'd choose to use for storms which are people killers.

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    -- There is no spoon. Only fork.
  3. Historical Occurances by VoiceOfSanity · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Over the last year there have been several unusual hurricane events. The first recorded hurricane in the Atlantic to occur in April was in 2003, along with the first recorded hurricane in December, both breaking long-standing records. This one however is most unusual because of the weather patterns in that part of the world. While they have most of the necessary conditions (warm water, weather systems) the prevailing winds blow from west to east (as opposed to east to west for the North Atlantic tropics), usually tearing systems that could develop into shreads.

    This becomes a problem because unlike areas that are used to hurricanes (US, Carribbean, Pacific, Australia, Madagascar) the Brazilians have no experience with tropical systems, so they have no way of knowing what to expect. Having lived through 16 of them (including Betsy in 1965, Camille in 1969 and Andrew in 1992) all I can say is that anyone living in the potential landfall area might want to consider going inland a ways.

    A good site to look at is the Naval Research Labs Monterey hurricane page located here:

    http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/tc_pages/tc_home.html

    It lists all of the systems they are following, along with a very good collection of satellite images.

  4. Maybe by Molina+the+Bofh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Maybe it's one of the first signs that this prediction may be accurate.

    And, as the article says, Bush thinks Global Warmin is a hoax. Typical.

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    Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
    1. Re:Maybe by 2marcus · · Score: 2, Interesting
      If you go to the original study you can see that it is in fact well-caveated. It was a hypothetical scenario - designed to look at unlikely and extreme outliers of what climate scientists are studying.

      Note that I am a believer in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to reduce the likelihood of extreme negative climate change events. However, the Pentagon report should really not be used as an example of mainstream climate science (I believe the authors themselves do not work in the field). And the Guardian really went overboard in their reporting of it.

  5. Atlantic anomalously COOL right now by mc6809e · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Most of the South Atlantic is actually cooler than average, so it seems unlikely that global warming is to blame.

  6. Babelfish good work by BinLadenMyHero · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Wow! Did babelfish improved that much since the last time I used it? Apart from calling Rio "River" :), it's a reasonable translation, for a machine:

    Cyclone Catherine gains force and must reach Santa Catarina in this sunday ClicRBS CBN

    RIVER - Baptized of Catherine, the extratropical cyclone that if formed the 440 kilometers of the south coast of the country gained force during the dawn of this Saturday and must arrive at the continent in the dawn of this sunday, will have remained this rhythm of displacement.

    The cyclone, that has winds of 118 for the moment the 152 kilometers, must enter in the Brazilian continent between Itajai, the coast catarinense north, and the Estuary of the Silver, in the coastal gaucho, reaching mainly the beaches of open sea. Specialists foresee winds of to 70 km/h, being able to arrive the 170 km/h in high sea.

    It is possible that the phenomenon affects areas in the catarinense interior. Meteorologistas alerts, however, that it does not have reason for panic. The effect caused for the extratropical cyclone would be rain, strong wind and undertow in the sea. In accordance with the forecast of the Center of Hydrography of the Navy, the waves will have to arrive the three meters of height in the coast north of Santa Catarina until Cold Handle, in Rio De Janeiro. In opened sea, the waves will be able to reach four meters of height.

    In Santa Catarina, the Civil Defense and Federal Road Policy keep teams in permanent plantao taking care of for telephone 191. The cyclone that occurs in the coast is an unknown phenomenon in the South Atlantic.

    In the satellite images, the extratropical cyclone, with tropical characteristics, very is seemed an hurricane - the specific type of cyclone that if abates on the Atlantic Ocean North, the Sea of the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean East, to the North of the Equator.

    - This cyclone is uncommon because it was gotten loose of the remain of the cold front. It is the first time that I see a extratropical cyclone close to Brazil so concentrated thus - said Francisco de Assis Diniz, head of the National Center of Forecast of the National Institute of Meteorology, surpreso with the image.