A relatively quiet week plus the formation of a rare January hurricane in the Atlantic

East Meadows at dawn, Northampton, MA, Jan 12, 2016

The last few days have featured more January like weather with some snow (less than two inches) on Tuesday evening and then wind and cold Wednesday into Thursday. With weather like that I have not been out much so have not turned up anything too noteworthy.  Nonetheless I still managed to add one more new species for the county this year when I had a Barred Owl (#78) calling at home this evening.

A very unusual weather occurrence took place yesterday with the formation of a subtropical storm (named Alex) in the eastern Atlantic south of The Azores which then strengthened into a hurricane today with 85 MPH winds (thus becoming the strongest January Atlantic hurricane ever).  This is only the fourth time since record keeping began in 1851 that a named storm has formed in the Atlantic in January. A very unusual occurrence and one that requires above normal sea surface temperatures (among other reasons) for it to occur. More details about the storm and its formation can be found at the following links:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/alex-becomes-the-atlantics-first-january-hurricane-since-1955

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/unprecedented-simultaneous-january-named-storms-in-the-atlantic-and-c