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Hurricane Bonnie was an unusual storm - Here's why

Recapping Hurricane Bonnie, an unusual and record breaking storm.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — On June 27th, the National Hurricane Center issued the first advisory on Potential Tropical Cyclone Number two, which later went on to become Hurricane Bonnie. 

From beginning to end this storm was a strange one.

For starters, where it formed, about 8 degrees north latitude and only about 200 miles north of French Guiana in South America. Storms often don’t form this far south for a few reason the big one being a lack of Coriolis. The general rule is storms typically need to be about 10 degrees north to wrap up with a decent structure.

A few islands that typically do not see tropical systems due to their position so far south were impacted. Trinidad and Tobago as well as the island of Bonaire were all impacted. Bonaire actually had a very unusual tropical warning issued by the government of the Netherlands which is a Dutch special municipalities.

Due to the southern nature of the storm, it also brushed Venezuela before tracking west towards Central America. It made landfall on July first along the Nicaragua and Costa Rica coastline. Only two named storms on record have made landfall in Costa Rica.

Unlike most storms Bonnie did not break apart completely over the mountains of Central America. It maintained its Tropical storm intensity and became a rare cross over storm. Since it maintained tropical storm status it continued to keep it’s name as it moved in to a different basin. This is unlike Tropical Storm Agatha that had it’s name changed to Alex after it fell apart and re-formed earlier in 2022.

The following week Agatha continue to track west out to sea reaching a peak as a Category 3 storm system. Only two other storms have also done that.

It was not quite there but close on another record as well. Bonnie had it’s final warning near 134 degrees west. This is important because if it made it to 140 degrees west the storm would have been the first system on record to go from the Atlantic basin, to the Eastern Pacific and then to the Central Pacific.

Find the latest on our tropical weather here.

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