SCI/TECH: Tropical Storm Zeta Forms

Tropical Storm Zeta has formed in the eastern Atlantic a month after the official end of hurricane season, leaving forecasters scratching their heads in wonder.



According to Wired News, it is unknown whether this is the latest tropical storm in history. After further research, the latest storm i could come up with was Hurricane Lili, which began as a subtropical storm on December 12, 1984.

This is very disconcerting news, as it leads one to wonder what is going on with our global weather patterns. They seem to have gotten worse over the last twenty or thirty years. Is it just a normal cycle or is it a sign of things to come?

Related News Links:
www.nhc.noaa.gov

[edit on 30-12-2005 by snafu7700]

Thank you for the information. However, 1954 Hurricane Alice formed on December 30 and lasted til January 6th. This weather is just in a long line of abnormal occurences that have happened lately.

I can't wait to see what else is going to happen.

thanks for the info celtic....i had 15 minutes to research before heading back to work.

i wonder if this is just a normal cycle. when you consider that we are basing our facts on only 150 years of hard data, i think its kind of hard to make a valid assessment of the situation. are there any meteorologists out there with any further info to offer on this one?

As stated, this is not totally unheard of, but it does put the cherry on the cake of this incredible year for hurricanes in the North Atlantic basin.

[edit on 12/30/2005 by djohnsto77]

yeah, it could be just normal perturbations of the weather cycle...

But if we have another record breaker next year... well then....

Originally posted by LazarusTheLong
yeah, it could be just normal perturbations of the weather cycle...

But if we have another record breaker next year... well then....

Not necessarily, if we are going through cycles, it will likely get worse or maintain this kinds of behaviour for 10-50 more years.

See here

Forecasters have said that hurricane seasons are going to be more active than usual for at least another decade _ and possibly as long as 50 years.

--Kit.

Long seasons happen in 20-25 year intervals.

There were 4 out of season storms in 1887- two in may and two in december.

The 1908 Season started in March.

There was one early storm in 1932

There was a pack of early and late seasons in the 50s.
51 had a hurricane in May, then in February of 52 (an extention of the 51 season basically) there was a Hurricane that hit Florida on groundhog day. That is one of only two late storms to form in the Carribean. Odette was the other.

54 had Hurricane Alice at this time of year- it started in late december and died out in early January.

78 and 84 had late storms. 81 had an early one.

In 2003 there was an early storm, then two in December. Odette was one of them.

In 2005- well, I think you all know.

So 87, 08, 32, 50-54, 78-84, 03-???

21 years, 22 years, 18 years, 24 years, 19 years.
Barring a larger shift of some kind, I expect this to end by 09 and happen again somewhere between 2025 and 2030.

Holy Smokes!! I'm standing in awe (sitting actually)
of what has happened and is still happening this year.
What is frightening is that the meteorologists say this is
an uptick that should last 20 years or so. YIKES!

It's important to realize the different characteristics in seasons.

They usually work in cycles, but different cycles. Out of seasons hurricanes seem to work as I described earlier.

Unusually active seasons seem to follow a different cycle, which fluctuates at about 30-50 years, and the stretches of high activity seem to last longer- 10 or more years of high activity can happen, separated by patches of extremely low activity, and moderate seasons on between the highs and lows.

What bothers me really is the overall intensity, as well as the track that hurricanes take. I don't have much information on if or how tracks are changing because it takes a lot of research to see that patterns sometimes. I've spent hours in Wikipedia this year learning about this stuff, and I there are still some things I understand and many things that I don't.

Activity can be bad, but a shift in where they form and what tracks they take would probably be worse because that affects strength and landfall, and I believe would have to be the result of a very dramatic change.

If storms start regularly taking the "under Cuba" route, as we saw a few times recently, getting into the gulf without losing too much strength, things could get really bad for the gulf coast in America and Mexico.

Also, I have looked at maps, although I haven't identified a year-to-year pattern, and I have seen that some seasons have their own trend in tracks. Some seasons they like to hit the Eastern seaboard and turn North. Sometimes the majority seem to shoot the gulf, either under, over, or through the islands.

My major worry isn't really how many there will be. My main concern is how bad they will be and where they will hit. It's hard to fathom what would happen if we saw a string of seasons where there Rita/Katrina model prevailed. That particular track is extremely dangerous.


Of course I also have an open mind to weather manipulation. My question on that is what in the world is wrong with humanity, if that technology exists (and I'm confident that it does, and if not, almost certainly is attainable).
Why would you turn something into a weapon against civilians when it could just as easily be used to protect them.

We're looking at a field of knowledge which could be, and possibly has been developed to the extent that it could be used to end droughts, prevent loss of life, and possibly even engineer conditions on earth at least to a certain degree. I'd like to think that we'll come to a point in the development of society where the UN or just nations working alone or in smaller coalitions could harness such a technology to use for the good of the world. Imagine being able to steer a typhoon away from India, feed it enough to keep it healthy, then seed it and let it dissipate as it approaches Africa to provide a healthy rainfall in Ethiopia.

Seems like there's more money and power in that than in destroying New Orleans.

I don't know if The Weather Channel has their information correct or not but I thought I heard today or rather Friday that this is the latest that a tropical storm has ever formed in the Atlantic. I never thought the weather would help me remember the order of the Greek alphabet. I expect this storm will not do any harm.

Originally posted by orionthehunter
I don't know if The Weather Channel has their information correct or not but I thought I heard today or rather Friday that this is the latest that a tropical storm has ever formed in the Atlantic. I never thought the weather would help me remember the order of the Greek alphabet. I expect this storm will not do any harm.

Well, it's right, and then it's wrong. There are very very subtle qualifiers there.

The big thing is that Hurricane Alice was became a tropical Storm on December 30th/31st 1954, grew to Hurricane Strength (Catagory One) then died at sea off of the lesser Antilles- it lasted until January 6th 1955. The only way to avoid counting Alice is the latest is if you count the fact that it was an extra-tropical storm before it moved South and became a tropical depression, then a tropical storm, and eventually a hurricane. I think that's really splitting hairs. The fact of the matter is that Alice became a Tropical storm either on the same day or a day later (I'm not totally sure) as Zeta, and then grew to Hurricane Strength on the 31st as well.

Also, a storm that forms in January-February is slightly closer to the last season than to the next, it is always chronologically closer to the last storm of the previous season than to the first storm of the next season, but January and February storms aren't considered late- they are considered early.

Also, there have been two Carribean Storms in December before, but those were both in early December, so even if they counted the Carribean as part of the Atlantic, those would be just very slightly earlier than this one.

I wonder if global weather changes will make possible for storm to be forming during the entire year and not limited to seasonal weather fluctuations.

That will be something something else.

It would have to be an incredibly dramatic shift. If I understand correctly, you'd need an increase in water temperatures corresponding with the right atmospheric conditions. Granted that we have seen steadily increasing temperatures which can account for the increased frequency and even strength, we haven't gotten to the point where January feels like September in the Atlantic.

Now, if things get considerably worse temperature wise, we could see out of season storms more regularly (we'll know for sure if the out of season storms don't slow down in the next few years and stay gone for 20 years.)

Even then, you'll have a concentrated storm season, and still only a couple of winter storms. I'm not saying it can't get worse, I'm not even saying that it's not getting worse. I'm just saying that there will always be a large volume of storms in September, and a few little ones in the winter sometimes. I'm not gonna say never, but I am gonna say is that if there are two category 3+ landfalls in the US in the same year between December and February, I'll shave my goatee, which at this point is older than several members of my family, and will probably be taller than most of them by the time I'm dead if I have my way.

This happened before in the 50's, but in a regularly dull hurricane season. The water in the area is too cold and it will likely degrade into a low pressure system.