Hurricane Epsilon strengthens despite cool waters

MIAMI (Reuters) – Hurricane Epsilon, the 14th hurricane of
a record-breaking Atlantic storm season, defied expectations it
would weaken over cool Atlantic waters and strengthened on
Saturday as it churned slowly eastward.

Epsilon’s maximum sustained winds reached 80 mph (130 kph)
by 4 p.m. (2100 GMT), comfortably over the threshold for a
tropical storm to be categorized as a hurricane, and it was
about 930 miles west of Portugal’s Azores islands, the U.S.
National Hurricane Center said.

But the cyclone posed no threat to land, and the hurricane
center said in a bulletin that Epsilon could not maintain that
intensity for much longer.

Hurricanes are normally spawned over warmer Atlantic waters
further south. They need warm water to gain power and higher
than normal sea surface temperatures this year have helped the
2005 Atlantic hurricane season, which formally ended on
Wednesday, enter the record books in a multitude of ways.

Epsilon, the sixth hurricane to occur in December since
records began in 1851, was named like its four predecessors for
a letter in the Greek alphabet after the official list of storm
names for 2005 was exhausted.

This season has witnessed the most tropical storms on
record — 26. It has seen the most hurricanes, with 14. The
highest number of hurricanes previously on record was 12, in
1969, and the highest number of named storms was 21, in 1933.

The long-term average is 10 storms per season, six of which
become hurricanes.

This year also set a record of three Category 5 storms —
the top rank on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane
intensity — including Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New
Orleans and killed more than 1,200 in Louisiana and
Mississippi.

Hurricane Wilma in October briefly became the most powerful
hurricane ever observed in the Atlantic. This summer also saw
the first recorded tropical storm — Vince in October — strike
the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.

While most climatologists agree that the large number of
storms can be blamed on a natural and periodic switch in
climatic conditions, some experts say they also see signs that
global warming could be increasing the average intensity of the
storms.