Never A Dull Moment - Tropical Depression Cristobol Made It All The Way Across Lake Superior
This has been the year of murder hornets, massive locust invasions on two continents, and a sudden start to Atlantic hurricane season, among other oddities (not to mention the deadly pandemic). So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that Lake Superior is set to see its first post-tropical cyclone ever recorded, and yet here we are.
Tropical Depression Cristobal is currently churning over the Midwest after bringing torrential rain and storm surge to the Gulf Coast. It’s in the process of becoming subtropical but is expected to maintain its swirling characteristics and make landfall on Lake Superior (or is it lakefall?). While the lake is no stranger to massive storms and powerful gales, it’s never experienced one like Cristobal.
The National Hurricane Center stopped issuing forecasts for Cristobal early on Tuesday morning, and it issued its final forecast map on Monday. But that map showed the storm heading in a very weird direction. But if it continues to spin as cyclones do and maintains its current trajectory, Cristobal would be the first tropical or post-tropical cyclone to make landfall on Lake Superior on records that go back to the mid-1800s. The storm is actually forecast to strengthen after that and could make yet another landfall on Hudson Bay in Canada (bayfall?), something that’s happened only one other time, in 1954, when the post-tropical storm version of Hurricane Hazel reached the bay.
EDIT
All this makes Cristobal a continued meteorological oddity of the highest order. It’s the earliest third named storm ever recorded in the Atlantic and came to the basin via the Pacific, where it was Tropical Storm Amanda, the first named storm of the season in that basin. Cristobal follows Arthur and Bertha, two tropical storms that formed before the season even officially began on June 1. Hurricane season is forecast to be an active one and run until November 30, so there’s unfortunately still plenty of time to set more weird milestones.
EDIT/END
https://climatecrocks.com/2020/06/11/another-first-tropical-cyclone-passes-over-lake-superior/
