Today is the last day of the official hurricane season, but apparently nobody told Epsilon, which is still out there and going strong. The satellite presentation today is beautiful; there's symmetric outflow, nice banding features, and an eye/eyewall forming. This visual appearance plus some help from other remote sensing techniques gives an estimated intensity of 55kts and 993mb. It could strengthen further before transitioning to an extratropical cyclone this weekend... possibly reaching hurricane status. It's tracking W at 8kts, but should begin a northeasterly movement tonight. As of 15Z, it's located at 30.7N 53.9W, or about 10 degrees ESE of Bermuda. As a quick season wrap-up, we've seen 26 storms reach Tropical Storm intensity or higher. 13 of those reached Hurricane status, and 7 of those reached Major Hurricane status (CAT3+). The "average" numbers are 10 Tropical Storms, 6 Hurricanes, and 2 Major Hurricanes. Taking into account the numbers of storms and longevity of them compared to average, this season was over 2.5 times more active than an average season (257%). In the Atlantic, we witnessed the highest number of named storms in recorded history (26), the lowest pressure in recorded history (882mb), and the costliest disasters in US history ($100 billion+). There are scores of other records too. I'll eventually be sending out my full summary, but this is a good teaser! Stay tuned!
Please visit my tropical Atlantic headquarters.
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