It’s the time of year for Cape Verde hurricanes, the longest and most powerful storms
It is the hurricanes of legend, bowling balls that cross the whole Atlantic Ocean, the threatened ships of yesteryear and make the long curved lines on the hurricane cards.
Cape Verde Storms, named after the group of islands at around 450 miles (725 kilometers) off the west coast of Africa, are generally forming thunderstorm clusters which move away from the continent and in the Atlantic.
With thousands of kilometers of ocean water above the Fahrenheit temperature at 80 degrees (Celsius of 27 degrees) necessary to fuel hurricanes, CAP-Vert storms are among the most dangerous that threaten North America. According to the National Hurricane Center, around 85% of all major hurricanes – category 3 and superiors – start there.
“These are the media stars and certainly receive a lot of attention because you can follow them for a long time,” said Jeff Masters, meteorologist for Yale Climate Connections.
But they are also a rare threat. Less than one in 10 out of 10 crashes in the United States, the others disintegrate or are curved at sea by the northern and east management winds which normally prevail over the Atlantic.
The conditions must be good for the CAP Verde storms to form and develop, keeping them mainly confined in August and September.
Hurricane Erin is a storm of the CAP. The National Hurricane Center looks at two other clusters of storms east of Erin who could turn into tropical storms.
But the atmosphere is too complex to know how strong these storms can be if they develop or if one of them will threaten American forecastists begin to lose confidence in their ability to predict the future of any specific storm more than a week. It takes at least 10 days to a potential hurricane to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
The storms of Cap Verde begin on Africa where hot dry air in the Sahara and hot wet air on the Gulf of Guinea clash and create thunderstorms that move away from the continent.
Hot water is the first ingredient. Hurricane also thrive with light winds above them that will not blow the thunderstorms far from the center.
“They are the strongest because they have the most time to develop. Other storms can crash too early on earth,” said Masters.)
The researchers have spent the past few years studying the ocean and the atmosphere in the Atlantic Far East to have a better idea of the reason why certain storms are formed and some do not do so.
In recent years, scientists have realized that dry air and dust of the Sahara in suffelled Africa in the Atlantic from the East can reduce the high humidity that hurricanes need and inhibit their development. Dust can travel throughout the ocean and settle on cars and windows on the east coast of the United States.
“They travel about a mile above the surface, the winds are very strong and the air is dry and warm. It is a trifecta that removes the activity of hurricanes,” said Jason Dunion, a scientist from the University of Miami Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies.
Some years may not see a Cap-Verde storm at all. Some may see up to four or five. But on average, about one or two hurricane per year are classified as storms in Cape Verde, according to the National Hurricane Center.
And it is not the only storms to strike the United States, The Weather Channel has analyzed the hurricanes since 1995 and found only nine of the 60s that hit the United States were those that cross the whole Atlantic.
The list of famous Cape Verde hurricanes has a lot of overlap with the list of most memorable, most powerful and deadliest hurricanes.
There is the 1900 Galveston hurricane that killed around 8,000 people in Texas and the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane which killed 2,500 in Florida. More recently, Hurricanes gave in 1960 in Florida, Hugo in 1989 in South Carolina, Andrew in 1992 in Florida, Ivan in Grand Cayman, Alabama and Florida in 2004, IKE in Texas in 2008, Irma in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Florida in 2017 and Florence in North Caroline in 2018 were all Cape Verde Storms.
