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.