It is August 24, and there have been no Atlantic hurricanes yet. But during the low-CO2 year of 1938, the first hurricane formed on January 3.
On January 1, a weak extratropical cyclone formed about 2,000 miles (3,200 km) southwest of the island of São Miguel in the Azores. Moving eastward initially, it later began a turn to the south on January 3. On that day, the cyclone transitioned into a warm-core system, a tropical storm with winds of 60 miles per hour (97 km/h). Henceforth, it gradually curved to the southwest and on January 4 became a hurricane, equal to Category 1 on the modern Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. It peaked at 80 mph (130 km/h) that same day but weakened into a tropical storm on January 5. Turning to the south-southwest, it dissipated on January 6 while centered well to the east of the Lesser Antilles. The cyclone became the first documented Atlantic tropical cyclone to attain hurricane intensity in the month of January and is one of just four Atlantic storms known to have occurred in that month, the others being Hurricane Alice in 1955, a subtropical cyclone in 1978, and Tropical Storm Zeta in January 2006.[1]
1938 Atlantic hurricane season – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
