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Tropical Storm Colin formed on June 5,making it the earliest third storm on record in the Atlantic basin.
(MORE: Colin Impacts)
Colin then made landfall along the Big Bend of Florida late on June 6 with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph. This is the first named storm to make landfall in Florida since Andrea in 2013.
(INTERACTIVE TRACKER: Tropical Storm Colin)
Tropical storm-force winds (39 mph or greater) knocked down trees and power lines in the Tampa area on Monday morning. A wind gust to 57 mph was clocked at Bradenton Beach. Florida Highway Patrol reported wind speeds as high as 61 mph at the Skyway Bridge on Monday.
Locally more than 10 inches of rain fell north and northeast of Tallahassee,Florida,in Bradfordville and near Wadesboro. Nearly 11 inches of rain was measured at one location near Micanopy (south of Gainesville) in the 24 hours ending 7 a.m. EDT Tuesday. Gainesville saw its second wettest June day on record Monday with 5.65 inches of rain.
Tuesday morning,a trailing band of heavy rainfall caused flooding in Tampa. Water reportedly entered some businesses on the southwest side of the city.
Storm surge flooding also inundated low-lying areas along Florida's Gulf Coast Monday.
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The National Hurricane Center declared Colin as "post-tropical"on June 7,and the final advisory was issued on the storm as it moved into the open Atlantic Ocean.
Incidentally,the part of the Gulf of Mexico and western Caribbean where Colin formed is a common area for June tropical cyclone development.
National Hurricane Center director Dr. Rick Knabb noted a tropical storm has formed in the Gulf of Mexico five of the previous six years.
Interestingly,three recent examples of June Gulf of Mexico tropical storms affecting Florida all had the same,lopsided appearance that Colin had.
June Atlantic "C"Storms Are Rare
This hurricane season has already gotten off to a weird start.
Hurricane Alex became only the second hurricane on record to form in the month of January,sweeping through The Azores as a tropical storm.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, Tropical Storm Bonnie brought flooding rainfall to parts of the Carolinas and Georgia,then had a "second wind"off the Outer Banks of North Carolina the following week.
Getting to the "C"storm in the Atlantic name list in June is exceedingly rare and Colin was named June 5,setting a new record for the earliest third storm in the Atlantic basin.
Dating to the 1950s,when tropical cyclone name lists were first enacted,there have only been two other June Atlantic "C"storms:
- Hurricane Chris (first a "subtropical storm"on June 18,2012)
- Tropical Storm Candy (briefly a tropical storm on June 23,1968)
Colorado State University tropical meteorologist Dr. Phil Klotzbach says prior to naming storms,a June 12,1887 tropical storm was the earliest in the entire period of record dating to 1851. However,Klotzbach notes that storms may have been missed in the historical record prior to the deployment of satellites in the 1960s.
Interestingly,in the record-setting 2005 hurricane season,Hurricane Cindy first became a tropical storm on July 5. That said,early-season (or pre-season) tropical cyclone activity has little bearing on the number or intensity of storms for the season as a whole.
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Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at www.weathernow24.com and has been an incurable weather geek since a tornado narrowly missed his childhood home in Wisconsin at age 7.
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