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Jerry is season’s 10th named storm
By SUZETTE PORTER
Article published on Sunday, Sept. 23, 2007 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/092307_fpg-01.gif) |
| The 11 a.m. (EDT) Sunday three-day forecast track from the National Hurricane Center shows Subtropical Storm Jerry about 1070 miles west of the Azores. |
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PINELLAS COUNTY – Subtropical storm Jerry, located far away from Florida in the north central Atlanta, is the 10th named storm of the 2007 hurricane season.
The National Hurricane Center announced Sunday morning that subtropical depression 11 had formed in the north central Atlantic. Before noon, the system had strengthened into a named storm.
NHC meteorologists said the storm could acquire tropical characteristics later on Sunday.
Before 2002, the NHC did not number or name subtropical storms. However, as researchers gained a better understanding of tropical systems, that changed, and the systems were given numbers and names that followed the same sequence for tropical systems.
According to Chris Landsea former meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and now Science and Operations officer at the NHC, a subtropical storm is a low-pressure system “existing in the tropical or subtropical latitudes that has characteristics of both tropical cyclones and mid-latitude cyclones.”
Subtropical storms have the ability to “transform into true tropical cyclones,” Landsea said. An example given was Hurricane Florence in November 1994, which began as a subtropical cyclone before becoming fully tropical.
Subtropical and tropical storms in the Atlantic basin have winds greater than or equal to 39 mph.
Another paper written by a team of NOAA scientists said both tropical cyclones and subtropical cyclones have deep convection organized into bands around the center.
“The primary difference between the tropical and subtropical cyclone was the existence, in the tropical cyclone, of dense overcast of nearby deep convective over the center,” the paper said.
Tropical Depression 10 brought much-needed rain to the Tampa Bay area as it passed over Florida before making landfall near Fort Walton Beach on Friday night. T.D. 10 started out as a subtropical depression.
Another subtropical storm, Andrea, formed May 9 just off the southeast coast of Florida, bringing an early start to the 2007 season.
NHC watching additional systems
Jerry wasn’t the only system NHC meteorologists were watching on Sunday.
An Air Force reconnaissance aircraft was on standby to investigate a broad area of low pressure that has some potential for development, according to the NHC.
The system is located just north of the northern coast of the northern Yucatan Peninsula. The storm was producing a large area of showers and thunderstorms from the northwestern Caribbean Sea into the southern and central Gulf of Mexico.
Meteorologists also are keeping an eye on a broad area of low pressure associated with a westward-moving tropical wave located about 350 miles east of the Windward Islands. The NHC said the system was continuing to show evidence of organization and could develop into a tropical depression during the next day or so as it approached the Windward Islands.
A third area of low pressure associated with a tropical wave located about 675 miles south-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands also is becoming better organized, and conditions appear favorable for it to become a tropical depression during the next day or two as it moves westward at about 15 mph, the NHC said.
Thus far this season, 10 named storms have formed - Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dean, Erin, Felix, Gabrielle, Humberto, Ingrid and Jerry. Dean was the first hurricane of the season and the first major hurricane. Dean and Felix were two of the strongest Category 5 hurricanes to make landfall since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30.
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Article published on Sunday, Sept. 23, 2007
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