Seasons w/ the First NS becoming a major hurricane....

[HurricaneBill]

ET cyclones become tropical all the time. It is not all that unusual. After all, Alex formed from a non-tropical surface trough and an upper low

Derek, you have my permission to smack me upside the head and say "DUH!"

[southerngale]

Great post USAwx1...interesting stuff!

[USAwx1]

Thanks SG

[NC George]

OK, I did some more research tonight, and found I was wrong about the year (and need to read more carefully):

(from http://www.hurricanehunters.com/gustav.htm )

"Hurricane Gustav started as a subtropical storm in the Bahamas that gradually acquired hurricane characteristics as it approached the Carolina coast. Gustav has the distinction of being the first subtropical storm to acquire a name, under a new naming policy which began in the 2002 season. Gustav then turned north and strengthened into the first hurricane of the Atlantic season on September 11th as it raced up the coast. Winds reached 90 mph as it eventually made landfall in Newfoundland. We flew seven missions on this storm."

However, this dilemna intrigues me. Either the title of this post should be changed, or the year 1992 should be included. Before 2002, subtropical storms were not named. Therefore the first named storm of 1992 was Andrew, and seemingly to me it should be included. However, if the name of this topic was "Seasons w/ the First tropical or subtropical Storm becoming a major hurricane...." then we could throw out 1992, as obviously Subtropical Storm #1 was the first STORM, just not the first named storm (but it would have been named had it occurred in the past 3 years.)

Another problem I have come across is Subtropical storms were not tracked before 1968, so it is possible there was a subtropical storm on one of the other years you list as data years that we don't know about. To solve this problem, we would have to limit the data set to 1968-present. See: ftp://ftp.nhc.noaa.gov/pub/storm_archiv ... elim01.gif

A more cerebral question would be: Why the decision to toss a year with a first subtropical storm from this data? It seems to me the reason they decided to name Sub-tropical storms was for easy referencing when the storm needs to be identified (similar to the reason hurricanes started being named.) Since they already had a naming system in place for the Atlantic, it only makes sense that they would use the same names for both type storms. However, are the two types of storms similar enough that if a Subtropical storm occurs first, it affects tropical development for the rest of the season? It would seem to me that this is important in this way: If you are noting coincidence, then the tropical/subtropical thing makes no difference. If, on the other hand, you has postulating that an first storm can be used as a predictor (non-coincidence or cause and effect) of the rest of the season, then the tropical/subtropical difference could be important.

The reason I ask these questions is it seems the year 1992 (6/3/1) {7/3/1 if you include SubT #1} does NOT support your idea (only 1/2, not OVER 1/2 of NS became H, and less than 1/2 of H became IH,) and you can't simply throw away data that does not agree with your point without a reason.