ON THE FORMATION OF HURRICANE ALICE, 1955

Abstract

The occurrence of hurricane Alice in January 1955 was a meteorologically unseasonable event. The synoptic history of the storm during its genesis over the warm waters of the tropical Atlantic, its intensification while drifting west-southwestward, its passage over the Leeward Islands, and its decay in the eastern Caribbean is reviewed. Its formation is attributed to a rare combination of favorable circumstances. These included anticyclogenesis and blocking in the middle latitudes of the western Atlantic and strong, deep easterlies to the south. This prolonged pattern of circulation effectively isolated the tropical regions from polar air invasions and caused an incipient cyclone that had formed at the point of fracture of an extended Atlantic trough to move west-southwestward over relatively warm waters where it was transformed into a warm-core storm of hurricane intensity. The wind and thermal structure is analyzed and land observations and damage estimates are presented. Finally, some comparative notes on other cold-season storms in the Tropics are given.