Akara … I’m diggin’ the name.
Forescasters are tracking a system known as Tropical Storm Akara, currently off the coast of Brazil. Forming Monday to become a rare tropical storm, it’s located in an area of the Atlantic Ocean that doesn’t normally have tropical cyclones.
Heading south, the tropical storm is approximately 260 nautical miles from Arraial de Cabo in the southeast direction, according to a Sunday report from the Brazilian Navy. Arraial de Cabo is a town on the coast of Rio de Janeiro, a state of Brazil. (RELATED: Powerful Hurricane And Drought Seasons Could Be On The Way, Thanks To La Niña)
Prior to pushing offshore, the storm hit portions of South America with heavy rain, and due to the trajectory of the system, it’s no threat to the continent’s mainland. The storm is continuing to organize and strengthen, with winds over 40 MPH, according to NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
This is the South Atlantic Basin’s first named storm since 2022, with the last being Subtropical Storm Yakecan.
The U.K. Met Office describes the system as “unusual,” because hurricanes are extremely rare in the South Atlantic. In fact, there’s only been one off South America’s coast in the entire modern satellite era, according to NOAA. That took place back in March 2004 when Category 1 Hurricane Catarina hit southern Brazil.
#GOESEast daytime True Color RGB + Nighttime Microphysics RGB imagery showed Tropical Storm #Akara as it formed off the southeast coast of #Brazill at 0000 UTC on 19 February – more details on the CIMSS Satellite Blog: https://t.co/0MaBeIERTs pic.twitter.com/YXJ1JtPrf2
— UW-Madison CIMSS (@UWCIMSS) February 19, 2024
Hurricane in development? … We’ll see.