Martin becomes 7th hurricane of Atlantic season
Martin strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane over the open waters of the northern Atlantic on Wednesday morning, joining Lisa which had become a hurricane in the western Caribbean only hours earlier. Meanwhile, a new tropical threat may arise along the southeastern coast of the United States next week.
Unlike Lisa, which was spinning in the Caribbean Sea and struck Belize as the sixth hurricane of the 2022 season Wednesday afternoon, Martin will not have any immediate impacts to land and will instead take a meandering path across the northern Atlantic in the coming days. AccuWeather meteorologists will continue to monitor the storm, which could eventually bring impacts to parts of Europe.
Whether Martin survives the trip to Europe or not, it is notable for keeping the Atlantic tropics active during the final month of hurricane season. Only twice before in recorded history, in 1932 and 2001, have two hurricanes spun across the basin simultaneously during the month of November, according to Colorado State University Meteorologist Philip Klotzbach.
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This image of the west-central Atlantic shows Hurricane Martin, on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022. (AccuWeather Enhanced RealVue™ satellite) |
As of 5 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Martin was located 805 miles to the west-northwest of the Azores, an island chain located west of Portugal, and was moving northeastward at 46 mph with sustained winds of 85 mph. The system is gradually intensifying over the central north Atlantic and is expected to threaten shipping lanes.
Changing conditions over the North Atlantic may allow Martin to live on with the intensity of a hurricane or strong tropical storm for several days. However, Martin is likely to transition away from a true tropical system.
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There is a chance Martin survives the trip toward Ireland and the United Kingdom as a trackable entity, even if another system merges it.
The flurry of tropical activity is likely to continue beyond Lisa and Martin. AccuWeather meteorologists say even more tropical development is possible through the first week of November.
The Atlantic hurricane season does not officially end until Nov. 30, and several opportunities remain for other storms to form, including near the United States coast.
Historical information, as well as forecast data, has been suggesting that the zone from the Caribbean to the western Atlantic will remain a source of potential trouble in terms of tropical activity moving forward through November, AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Adam Douty said.
AccuWeather has been outlining this zone as a spot for tropical activity since mid-October.
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A storm will gradually form in the middle part of the atmosphere from the central and eastern Caribbean to the Bahamas late this week and weekend. This large and slowly spinning storm or gyre tends to produce pockets of showers and thunderstorms since it is a source of moisture and low pressure in the atmosphere. As a result, there is the potential for one or more of these clusters to evolve slowly into a tropical or subtropical system.
Following Lisa and Martin, the next name on the list of tropical storms for 2022 is Nicole.
As an added concern, it appears the gyre will slowly migrate northwestward with its disturbances toward Florida and the southeastern U.S., in general, from this weekend to next week, according to Douty.
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Even if an organized tropical system fails to form out of the broad zone of unsettled weather conditions, there will be the potential for pockets of heavy rain to reach the Atlantic coast of the U.S. by next week.
Stormy seas from the Caribbean to the western Atlantic could affect cruise ship operators, commercial fishing vessels as well as global shipping operations, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Adam Douty.
"With an area of high pressure to the north that adds to the easterly winds from the gyre, beach communities could also be in for long-duration erosion and coastal flooding problems that ramp up this weekend and could spread northward to the mid-Atlantic and New England next week," Douty said.
The problems along the Atlantic coast next week could be made worse by the proximity of the full moon, which tends to boost astronomical tide levels, compared to the rest of the month.
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As of Wednesday morning, there have been 13 named tropical systems this season in the Atlantic. In addition to the seven hurricanes, there were two major hurricanes. Both Fiona and Ian reached Category 4 intensity (134-156 mph) on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind scale.
Ian was the strongest hurricane of the season thus far and peaked just to the southwest of South Florida with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph, just 2 mph shy of Category 5 strength. Ian caused dozens of fatalities and catastrophic damage in southwestern Florida.
With Lisa in the Caribbean and now Martin in the northern Atlantic, this marks only the third time since the satellite era began in the mid-1960s when there has been more than one named system spinning in the Atlantic at the same time during the month of November, according to Colorado State University Meteorologist Philip Klotzbach. The last time there were two simultaneous systems was in 2020 with Eta and Theta, as well as Theta and Iota that month. Prior to 2020, the 2001 season had Michelle and Noel spinning at the same time.
The active pattern currently ongoing in the Atlantic is particularly notable considering the long-lasting stretch during the heart of the season when no named storms formed from early July through the entirety of August. In fact, August didn't have a single named storm, the first time that has happened since the 1997 season and just the third time on record that's ever occurred.
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