On This Date: Tropical Storm Arlene Forms In The Gulf And Tracks In A Strange Direction
A short-lived tropical storm is not something we'd normally reflect back on in history, but the first storm of the Atlantic season two years ago had an interesting quirk because of the direction it tracked in the Gulf.
Tropical Storm Arlene was named on June 2, 2023, in the eastern Gulf to the south and west of Florida. Normally when a tropical storm or hurricane is located in this region of the Gulf, it's almost a lock it will strike some part of the U.S. Gulf Coast. That's because storms in this area typically track in some sort of north, east or west direction, which all bring land into play.
But, Arlene had another plan and did the opposite by taking what the National Hurricane Center called an unusual north-to-south path over the eastern Gulf because of the upper-level steering currents that were in place. It then fizzled in the face of strong winds aloft while approaching Cuba just over 24 hours later.
Outside of helping to enhance some rainfall in Florida, the storm produced no significant impacts. We definitely weren't complaining about that outcome two years ago.
Chris Dolce has been a senior digital meteorologist with weather.com for 15 years after beginning his career with The Weather Channel in the early 2000s.
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