Hurricane Fred has quickly strengthened to become the second major hurricane of the 2009 Atlantic season, with winds blowing up to 120 miles (193 kilometers) an hour.
But the powerful Category 3 hurricane is expected to be short-lived and should stay well away from land until it blows itself out over the Atlantic Ocean, meteorologists say.
During the next two or three days "El Niño-induced wind shear will be a factor in Fred's demise, in addition to cooler water temperatures farther north," said Keith Blackwell, a meteorologist at the University of South Alabama's Coastal Weather Research Center in Mobile.
Fred Faces Low Heat, High Winds
Hurricanes draw their energy from ocean waters that have been heated to at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26.6 degrees Celsius).
As of 11 a.m. ET today, Hurricane Fred was churning over the warm waters a few hundred miles west of the Cape Verde Islands (see map). But the storm is quickly moving northward, and the temperature of the underlying water should drop.
In addition, the El Niño that formed earlier this year has "really, really dampened hurricane activity" in general in the western Atlantic, Blackwell said.
(Related: "Hurricane Season 2009: Where Are All the Storms?")
El Niño conditions are created by very warm water in the Pacific Ocean off the northwestern coast of South America. The phenomenon causes strong upper-level winds that inhibit hurricane formation in the Atlantic.
Once a hurricane has formed, those winds can also tear a storm apart, and it's likely the existing El Niño will help Fred dissipate as it loses strength over cooler waters.
Last month Hurricane Bill defied the odds to become the season's first major storm, with sustained winds of more than 135 miles (217 kilometers) an hour.
But the current El Niño conditions will probably continue until the hurricane season ends November 30, lowering the chances of a major storm making landfall.
"We probably will see more storms, undoubtedly," Blackwell said. "But I don't believe we'll see the [intense] late-season activity that we've seen during the past 10 or 15 years."
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