Earliest Hurricane On Record Forms In Atlantic In January

Alex became a hurricane over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday, Jan. 14, and passed near the Azores on Friday morning, local time, before diminishing.

The system will lose tropical characteristics as it moves over colder waters of the Atlantic this weekend.

Alex was the first Atlantic hurricane to form in the month of January since 1938 and is the first Atlantic hurricane to exist during January since Alice in 1955.

The system made the transition from a non-tropical storm to a subtropical storm to a full-featured tropical system during the first part of the week.                                                                   

A subtropical storm has both tropical and non-tropical characteristics and has a large wind field. 

This was the same system  meteorologists were tracking since development near Florida early in the month.

Alex was named in the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016, making it one of the earliest tropical systems to form in the Atlantic Hurricane Basin since records began in 1851.

First December Tornado in Michigan

The first December tornado in Michigan's recorded history hit a western Wayne County neighborhood December 23, 2015

, leaving a 2-mile trail of damage, ripping a roof off a gas station and more, according to the National Weather Service.

Pine trees were knocked down and limbs removed, and cars and buildings were damaged as the tornado with estimated 90 mph winds moved northeast between Canton and Plymouth. Crews assessing the damage today confirmed the tornado, with the most severe effects found at a light industrial complex on the southwest side of Canton–Plymouth Mettetal Airport.

The tornado first touched down at 6:43 p.m. Wednesday near Hanford Road and Burnham Drive in Canton. It ended three minutes later, about 2 miles northeast, at Haggerty Road and Newport Drive in Plymouth, "where a metal roof was taken off a gas station and more trees were damaged," according to preliminary information in a weather service statement.

The tornado was an EF-1 (EF means enhanced Fujita scale), on the lower-intensity end of a scale ranging from EF-0 to EF-5. Damage was mostly on the EF-0 scale (65-85 mph), but there was some EF-1 (86-110 mph) damage at the industrial complex, said Dave Kook, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

No injuries were reported. Kook said it's the state's first December tornado, and third tornado recorded in a winter month (December through Februrary), in reports dating back to 1950.

Storms on Wednesday whipped across the state, leaving 82,000 Consumers Energy customers without power in western and northern Michigan.