Tropical Storm Arthur Brushed N.C. Outer Banks; Sixth Straight Year a Named Storm Formed Before Hurricane Season

Arthur was born as a wave of low pressure along an old stationary front draped over the Florida Straits, which brought flooding rain to parts of South Florida, including the Florida Keys and the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale metro areas on May 14 and 15.

It then became sufficiently organized to become a tropical depression on May 16, then Tropical Storm Arthur six hours later that night after Hurricane Hunter aircraft found it had strengthened as it was just under 200 miles east of Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Arthur made its closest approach to the Outer Banks of North Carolina on the morning of May 18.

A private weather station at Alligator River Bridge in eastern North Carolina measured sustained winds of 39 mph and a gust to 46 mph early Monday afternoon. A wind gust to 42 mph was also reported at Oregon Inlet in the Outer Banks early Monday afternoon.

Cherry Point Naval Air Station in southeastern North Carolina clocked a wind gust up to 39 mph Monday morning. A buoy about 20 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras measured a wind gust to 49 mph Monday morning.

A few spots along the North Carolina coast in Carteret County picked up 4 to 5 inches of rain from Arthur.

Arthur was designated a post-tropical cyclone on May 19, by the time it was 400 miles east-northeast of Cape Hatteras.

Preseason Storms Have Been Common Lately

Arthur is another example of how storms can sometimes form before the hurricane season officially begins on June 1. This is the sixth straight hurricane season that has happened.

Last May, Subtropical Storm Andrea formed southwest of Bermuda the week before Memorial Day, but only lasted about 24 hours.

In 2018, Tropical Storm Alberto made a Memorial Day landfall along the Florida Panhandle, remained intact and took a strange track into Lower Michigan before losing its tropical characteristics.

Tropical Storm Arlene developed even earlier than Alberto and, in 2017, became only the second April Atlantic tropical storm of record.

Perhaps 2016 was the strangest early start to an Atlantic season in recent memory.

Tropical Storm Bonnie soaked the coast of the Carolinas in late-May 2016. But that was preceded by eastern Atlantic Hurricane Alex, only the second known January Atlantic hurricane. Alex eventually made landfall in the Azores as a tropical storm.

In 2015, Tropical Storm Ana made the second-earliest U.S. landfall of at least a tropical storm on record on Mother's Day weekend along the coast of the Carolinas.

This early start also happened in 2012 (Alberto, then Beryl in May), 2008 (Arthur), 2007 (another Subtropical Storm Andrea) and 2003 (another Ana, this time in April). Beryl nearly became a hurricane before coming ashore near Jacksonville Beach, Florida, on Memorial Day weekend 2012.

Nine of 17 years from 2003 through 2019 had at least one named storm before June 1, and there were a total of 11 out-of-season named storms during that time. The majority of these developed and meandered, or made landfall along the coast from North Carolina to northeastern Florida.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.