While I’ve been away with other things over the past couple weeks, we’ve had two more tropical systems form in the Atlantic Basin. Otto and Paula both became hurricanes albeit in different ways. Otto evolved into a hurricane after starting out as a subtropical depression. The storm gradually acquired more tropical characteristics, and became a hurricane. Fortunately, the storm was no threat to any land areas in the Atlantic.

Paula, on the other hand, was quite tropical. It started out as a tropical storm in the Western Caribbean, and strengthened to a Category Two Hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale with 100 mile per hour winds as it crept along in the Yucatan Channel. Paula, a very small storm, had hurricane force winds extending some 30 miles from its center, and tropical storm force winds some 60 miles from the center when it was at its peak intensity. We are still dealing with Paula, but it has weakened significantly.

As of the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, maximum sustained winds have dropped to 45 miles per hour with gusts up to 60 miles per hour. Minimum central pressure has risen to 29.59 inches of Hg, or 1002 millibars. The storm, which is located some 15 miles West of Veradero, Cuba is moving off to the East at 14 miles per hour. The storm is getting torn apart by tremendous shear to the north of it from the Southeastern United States. All warnings in Cuba have been discontinued by the Cuban government.

With the formation of Otto and Paula over the past couple of weeks, we have seen 18 depressions, 16 named storms, 9 hurricanes, and 5 major hurricanes this season. There is usually a second peak of the Atlantic Hurricane Season, which occurs around this time in October. The season lasts until November 30th, and in some cases can go beyond that. For example, the 2005 Atlantic season went into early 2006 with the last storm dissipating in the first days of January.