Humberto becomes first hurricane, just missing historic late mark

With the clock running down — literally, a digital countdown clock on The Weather Channel — an otherwise unremarkable and unthreatening tropical storm named Humberto fell just short of making history early Wednesday.

The National Hurricane Center announced at 5 a.m. that Humberto had reached hurricane strength, leaving it only No. 2 on the list of the latest-forming first hurricane in nearly a half century.

Gustav, which was declared a hurricane at 8 a.m., Sept. 11, 2002, retained the record by three hours — at least pending further review. The center always conducts a post-storm analysis that potentially could change estimated wind speeds along its track.

Tuesday was also the historical peak of the hurricane season and with two systems whirling in the Atlantic, there were some signs of agitation from the so-far pleasantly tranquil tropics.

Humberto, thousands of miles from the United States, did not pose much of a threat but it was a hurricane with 75 mph winds. Forecasters expected it to remain one for no more than a day or so before weakening in the cold waters of the Atlantic as it move north. But a regenerated Tropical Storm Gabrielle swept across Bermuda with 60 mph winds overnight. Forecasters also were monitoring a low pressure system in the northwestern Caribbean Sea near the Yucatan peninsula, giving it a high chance of becoming at least a tropical depression over the next five days., as it drifts westward toward Mexico.

Robert Molleda, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Miami-Dade, cautioned that while Sept. 10 represents the statistical peak for the number of Atlantic storms, risks remain high for South Florida for at least the next two months.

In records going back to 1865, 46 hurricanes have struck mainland South Florida — with 28 of them coming after Sept. 10. That’s 61 percent, Molleda said. Nineteen have struck South Florida in October alone, when storm formation shifts from the African coast to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico and steering currents tend to make South Florida more vulnerable.

“Sometimes people interpret the peak that it looks like we’re halfway done,” he said. “We still have really what is historically at least the busiest time of the year ahead.”

Scientists say the most obvious factors in tamping down storms so far this year appear to be dry air, a combination of dust clouds swirling from Africa’s Sahara Desert and dry, sinking air over the open Atlantic but other atmospheric factors also may play a role.

In the average year, the first hurricane typically arrives by Aug. 10.

Hurricane center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said first hurricanes in September are unusual but not unprecedented. Records dating to 1851 show 15 years when the first hurricane formed after Sept. 5. But Gustav was the latest since 1967 and the dawn of satellite tracking. The all-time latest came on Oct. 8, 1905.