Tropical Storm Nicole (2010)

Tropical Storm Nicole was a short-lived and unusually asymmetrical tropical cyclone. It caused destructive rainfall and flooding in Jamaica during the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. In Jamaica, the storm triggered widespread power outages across more than 288,000 residences. Nicole’s remnants contributed to the development of Hurricane Paula in the first weeks of October.

About Tropical Storm Nicole (2010) in brief

Summary Tropical Storm Nicole (2010)Tropical Storm Nicole was a short-lived and unusually asymmetrical tropical cyclone. It caused destructive rainfall and flooding in Jamaica during the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. Nicole was the last of a record eight tropical storms to form in September. In Jamaica, the storm triggered widespread power outages across more than 288,000 residences. The remnants of the storm contributed to a large disturbance along the East Coast of the United States, causing additional damage and deaths. Nicole’s remnants contributed to the development of Hurricane Paula in the first weeks of October. It was the sixteenth tropical storm and the fourteenth named storm of the season, as well as the last of the record eight tropical storms to form in September. It became a tropical depression over the northwestern Caribbean Sea on September 28. Nicole approached the coast of Cuba as a weak tropical storm, losing its status as a tropicalcyclone over the territory on September 29. It eventually became absorbed by a separate extratropical system over the Bahamas on September 30. The remnant low had steered in significant precipitation along the southeastern coast of the U.S. in the wake of the first tropical hurricane of the 2010 hurricane season, Hurricane Paula, which made landfall in Florida on October 1. It is the only tropical storm to make landfall in the United states since Hurricane Katrina in October 2005, when it made landfall on the Louisiana coast. The storm’s remnants have since been absorbed by the remnants of Hurricane Katrina, making landfall in Louisiana on October 17. It has also been the subject of a number of weather documentaries, including “The Hurricane That Saved My Life” and “Tropics of the Caribbean: The Story of Tropical Storm Nicole” (2011).

It is also the name given to a tropical storm that formed in the North Indian Ocean on September 27, 2010, but was not officially named until a day later. The system’s ambiguous nature led to disagreement among weather specialists over its classification, with one Cuban meteorologist stating that “no tropical storm exists over, or near” the country’s vicinity. In all, Nicole wrought an estimated USD 245. 4 million in damage throughout Jamaica, and there were sixteen fatalities. It also caused disastrous flooding in several parishes, severely damaging or destroying 528 houses. It had a maximum sustained winds of 45 miles per hour, with a minimum pressure of 995 mbar, just south of Cuba. It developed an elongated low-pressure center by September 28, well to the northwest of its strongest wind field. The next day, surface pressures steadily dropped as sustained winds around the low proximated tropical storm force. Nicole maintained a generally northeastward motion, caught in the steering flow between a large mid- to upper-level trough and an anticyclone to the west. In comparison, the core consisted of light winds and sporadic convection—a structure rather characteristic of a North IndianOcean monsoon depression. It acquired the northeast frontal characteristics of a developing tropical system before merging with a developing system over eastern North Carolina before merging twelve hours later.