Right now, Hurricane Bertha is a reintensifying Category 1 over the open Atlantic. But on Monday, the storm rapidly intensified to Category 3 or possible Category 4 status before a subsequent rapid weakening occurred yesterday.
Bertha was odd to begin with--having formed extremely far east for so early in the season, or indeed, for any time during the season--and becoming a July major hurricane was yet another remarkable feat. All of which makes Bertha a particularly troubling storm, as I write over at The Daily Green:
But perhaps even more worrisome is this recent appearance of very intense hurricanes in July, a month that traditionally has not featured many of them. Says Holland: "It is notable that we have had a remarkable run of July storms, which over the past decade have been running more than 50% above the previous average." Technically, given her origins so close to the African coast, Bertha is categorized as a Cape Verde-type hurricane, and those tend to be the most powerful and destructive of them all. But they don't generally form until later in the hurricane season ... or, at least, that's how it used to be.
Read here for my whole Daily Green item. With hurricane season kicking up, I'll be tracking storms more frequently, and getting ready for the paperback release of Storm World. So stand by...
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When comparing this Atlantic hurricane season to 2005, you should mention that the Atlantic was warmer in 2005 than it was this year (though this year is nonetheless very warm), and - as the names of the storms say - by this time of the year, 2005 had twice as many storms as 2008 does so far. Certainly, this year looks more and more like a very active year - but comparing it to 2005 is overwrought.