Karl Becomes A Major Hurricane And Joins Igor And Julia As Three Major Storms This Week

Sorry for the lack of posts to the blog on Thursday. Had some severe weather here in New Jersey and went to a football game on Thursday night. However, Hurricaneville has continued to monitor the situation in the tropics, and now we have three hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin right now. While we’ve had three named storms at one time in the region, there haven’t been three hurricanes. All of these storms became major hurricanes of Category Three strength or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Scale during the course of this week. So far this season, there have been six hurricanes that have formed, and five of them have been major storms.

The latest to become a hurricane is Karl, which is close to impacting the East Coast of Mexico. The storm, which had weakened to a minimal tropical storm while over the Yucatan Peninsula, has not only regenerated, but strengthened to a major hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour. Karl is just several hours away from making landfall. Even after the storm moves inland, effects will be still felt in the form of heavy rain as the storm system encounters higher elevation, which will create tremendous rainfall. More details on Karl will be forthcoming. Moving on into the Atlantic, we still have Igor and Julia.

Igor is the second most pressing concern since it is expected to have some sort of impact on Bermuda, and an indirect impact on the East Coast of the United States. Once on the verge of Category Five strength with maximum sustained winds of 155 miles per hour late Tuesday night, the storm has gradually weakened in the Western Atlantic to have maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour. Igor’s forward speed has slowed some over the past few days as it is only moving now to the Northwest at 9 miles per hour. A Hurricane Watch is currently in effect for Bermuda, which last had a direct hit from a major hurricane in 2003 when Fabian struck there. More details on Igor shortly.

Finally, we have Hurricane Julia, which had once strengthened to a Category Four Hurricane in the Eastern Atlantic, but had to deal with some of the outflow from Igor, which sheared the storm. It also began to move in cooler waters. Consequently, Julia is now a Category One Hurricane, but has re-strengthened a bit to have maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour. The storm, located some 1500 miles to the Southwest of the Azores in the Northeastern Atlantic, is moving to the West-Northwest at a brisk pace of 20 miles per hour. This system is expected to gradually weaken as it is already encountering tremendous shear from Igor’s massive circulation and is expected to be absorbed by Igor within five days.