What is a medicane and how does it form?
A big concern with medicanes is that they make landfall on very dry land, which could result in a big dust storm, or haboob.
What is a medicane?
A medicane was seen over the Mediterranean Sea on Tuesday. FOX Weather Meteorologist Steve Bender explains what it is, how it forms and why it matters.
We have heard of hurricanes and know about how they form, but what about medicanes? It's a new term you may or may not have heard of — here's why it's important.
The American Meteorological Society said the term medicane is short for Mediterranean hurricane, and it has been used for more than two decades to identify storms that develop over the Mediterranean, yet appear similar to tropical cyclones.
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They aren't typically as strong as the hurricanes you might see in the Atlantic, like Hurricane Melissa, which was a Category 5 storm that ripped through Jamaica and caused catastrophic damage.
That's because medicines form in a smaller body of water, meaning the storms have less time to intensify.
Mediterranean medicanes form in a smaller body of water, meaning less time to intensify. (FOX Weather / FOX Weather)
Medicane Ianos was the most intense ever recorded, comparable to a Category 2 hurricane. The storm reached one-minute wind speeds of 44 meters per second, or roughly 98 mph.
A medicane also made landfall in Libya on Tuesday. The Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies with the University of Wisconsin-Madison said the large storm forced a significant amount of dust from the Sahara to the Mediterranean.
Medicanes exhibit similar characteristics of a tropical storm, including a warm core and an eye, the institute said. With it being March, water temperatures are cooler, making it harder for a traditional tropical system to form.
Medicanes form from a mix of atmospheric processes and interactions between the ocean and the air. When the ocean–air interaction is stronger, they can develop more like hurricanes and become just as intense and damaging, according to the American Meteorological Society.
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These storms are hard to predict because models don't fully capture how the ocean and atmosphere interact during very strong winds, and they can miss smaller weather features that could still have a big impact, depending on how the storm develops.
Dramatic waves during a medicane in Sicily. (Getty Images)
That was the case with Storm Daniel — a medicane that intensified unexpectedly just before landfall and caused catastrophic flooding in Libya. Buildings were swept away and thousands of people died as a result of that storm.
Another factor that contributes to the lower intensity of medicanes is Saharan dust, which can suppress the development of these storms in the Mediterranean, according to the FOX Forecast Center.
Saharran dust can suppress the development of medicanes in the Mediterranean. (FOX Weather / FOX Weather)
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The bigger concern with medicanes is that they make landfall on very dry land, which could result in a big dust storm, or haboob.