A trio of named storms, the first of the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season, formed over the weekend, with one still hundreds of miles from North America becoming the first hurricane of the year and another tropical storm potentially threatening the Gulf of Mexico.

Hurricane Bill was moving west-northwest approximately 975 miles east of the Lesser Antilles late Monday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service’s National Hurricane Center (NHC). Maximum sustained winds were 90 mph with higher gusts and the storm was forecast to strengthen over the next two days.

“Bill could become a major hurricane by Wednesday,” NHC said. The NHC’s five-day track forecast shows Bill remaining well east of Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland, with Bermuda likely to receive the full brunt of the storm early Saturday morning.

Hurricane-force winds extend outward from the storm’s center as far as 30 miles and tropical storm-force winds extend outward as much as 145 miles. Bill is expected to continue moving west-northwest for the next couple of days, according to NHC. Tropical storms become hurricanes when winds reach 74 mph and become major hurricanes when winds increase to 111 mph.

Tropical Storm Claudette, which had been upgraded from a tropical wave in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday afternoon, became the first tropical storm to hit the U.S. mainland this year when it made landfall near Santa Rosa Island, FL, about 30 miles east of the Alabama border, at approximately 1:10 p.m. EDT on Monday, according to NHC. By 8 a.m. EDT Claudette had weakened to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph, and was moving northwest over southern Alabama, NHC said. Rainfall accumulations of 3-6 inches, with isolated maximum accumulations of 10 inches, were forecast for the Florida Panhandle, the Big Bend region of Florida and southern to central Alabama. The storm was forecast to move across Alabama and into northeastern Mississippi Monday night and is expected to bring heavy rains to the Ohio Valley by midweek.

The first named storm of the Atlantic season, Tropical Storm Ana, was positioned about 105 miles southwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and moving west-northwest at about 28 mph on Monday afternoon. Ana, which carried maximum sustained winds of 35 mph and was dumping heavy rains on Puerto Rico, was not expected to strengthen and could degenerate into a tropical wave by late Monday, NHC said. A tropical storm watch was in effect in Puerto Rico, the U.S. and British Virgin Islands and the north coast of Dominican Republic. NHC forecast that Ana would continue moving west-northwest over the next day or two.

However, other forecasters were warning Monday that if Ana were able to survive, there is an outside chance that it could rapidly gain strength in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, posing a threat to offshore oil and natural gas infrastructure and the Gulf Coast late this week.

With the chances of development so slim, the natural gas futures market was unconcerned on Monday. The September contract finished the day at $3.163, down 7.5 cents from Friday’s finish (see related story).

It had been a quiet hurricane season, with no named storms developing until this past weekend. Earlier this month the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the quiet start to the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season did not guarantee that the next four months will remain calm (see Daily GPI, Aug. 7). NOAA expects that the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1 and runs through Nov. 30, will see near- to below-normal activity, with the calming effects of El Nino continuing to develop. But despite the calm experienced in June and July, the historical peak months of the hurricane season — August to October — could still produce major storms, according to NOAA.

NOAA said it is now predicting fewer storms, with a 70% chance of seven to 11 named storms, three to six of them hurricanes, including just one or two major hurricanes. The number of tropical storms forecast by NOAA would be fewer than occurred during the 2008 season, when a total of 16 named storms, including eight hurricanes, five of them intense, formed in the Atlantic.

The consensus forecast this year has been for a relatively mild hurricane season. Some forecasters, including Andover, MA-based WSI Corp., have said a new El Nino event, combined with cooler Atlantic ocean temperatures, is likely to make the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season “relatively quiet” (see Daily GPI, July 21). Other forecasters calling for a mild hurricane season include Colorado State University (see Daily GPI, June 3) and AccuWeather.com Chief Long Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi (see Daily GPI, May 15).

A recent study by a NOAA-led team of scientists found that the apparent increase in the number of tropical storms and hurricanes over the past 130 years is likely attributable to improvements in observational tools and analysis techniques that better detect short-lived storms. The study’s finding of no increasing trend in hurricane and tropical storm counts in the Atlantic is consistent with several recent global warming simulations, according to the scientists.

Another recent study concluded that there have been more hurricanes and tropical storms in the North Atlantic during the past 10 years than in any other decade in the last 1,000 years. Results of the study, published in the journal Nature, indicate that warmer temperatures associated with climate change could increase hurricane activity in the tropical Atlantic.

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