Member-only story
The Only Hurricane To Span Two Separate Years
Plus, the only storm with a duplicate name
Most hurricanes are mundane. They form in predictable areas at predictable times. They act so predictably that hurricane watchers can confidently point to where they will be days in advance. But not all hurricanes are so mundane. Some storms decide to break all of the rules and do things their own way. That is what Hurricane Alice did in 1954. Hurricane Alice was a very strange hurricane.
Hurricane Alice formed on December 30th, 1954, spawning out of a particularly strong trough. Despite being so late in the season, the storm managed to find a patch of warm water and strengthen into a tropical cyclone. Hurricane Alice was the latest forming storm on record, and it still holds that record today (beating out 2005’s Tropical Storm Zeta by mere hours.)
Hurricane Alice topped out as a Category 1 storm with peak winds of 90 mph. It meandered southwestward and surprised observers and islanders in the Caribbean. It brought soaking rains and winds of 75 mph to the Eastern Caribbean long after hurricane season had ended. It wasn’t until January 2nd that the National Weather Service realized they had a strange late season storm on their hands. (This was an era before satellites, so finding and tracking storms was much more difficult than it is today.)
