Tropical Storm Colin

Tropical Storm Colin Becomes Earliest “C” Storm in Atlantic History

 

NOAA’s National Hurricane Center upgraded Tropical Depression 3 to Tropical Storm Colin in a special update at 5:30 PM EDT Sunday, June 5--making some history along the way. Never before have we been tracking the Atlantic’s third named storm of a calendar year this early in the year. As noted in a weather.com article, there have been two other “C” storms as early as June since current naming practices began in the 1950s: Hurricane Chris (which began as a named subtropical storm on June 18, 2012) and Tropical Storm Candy (June 23, 1968). Going all the way back to 1851, the previous earliest appearance of the season’s third storm was June 12, 1887, although some early-season storms were undoubtedly missed during the pre-satellite era.

 

 

 

As of 8 PM EDT Sunday, Tropical Storm Colin was located in the south central Gulf of Mexico at 23.4°N, 87.8°W, or about 460 miles southwest of Tampa, Florida. Colin is a minimal tropical storm, with top sustained winds of just 40 mph, and only modest further strengthening is expected before Colin approaches the northwest Gulf Coast of the Florida peninsula on Monday evening. The well-defined southwesterly flow steering Colin will take it into the Atlantic and on a track paralleling the southeast U.S. coast on Tuesday, where models suggest it will maintain or regain tropical storm strength, especially southeast of North Carolina. Update: At 11:00 PM EDT Sunday, NHC placed the southeast U.S. coast from Sebastian Inlet, FL, to Altamaha Sound, GA, under a tropical storm warning, with a tropical storm watch extending northward from the warning area to the South Santee River, SC. A tropical storm warning remains in effect on the Florida Gulf Coast from Indian Pass to Englewood.