Hurricane Humberto And Tropical Storm Imelda’s Forecast Cones Are Crossing; How Often Does This Occur?

Tropical Wave To Develop As It Moves West

Humberto and Imelda have really caught our attention over the past few days.

Quick recap for you, since a lot has happened:

Humberto joined the list of storms that rapidly intensified to a Category 5 hurricane and will brush by Bermuda soon.

(MORE: The Latest Forecast For Imelda, Humberto)

And Imelda, well, it has everyone talking.

Originally forecast to hit the Southeast, the system has now decided to follow Humberto out to sea and could also impact Bermuda in the coming days.

(MORE: Imelda’s Turn Right)

As everyone else has been discussing these two storms and their U.S. impacts, the first thing I noticed was the crossing of their cones.

I was curious how often this happens, and it turns out, it's pretty rare.

Why The Cross?

Imelda was moving slowly, which allowed Humberto to step up to the plate.

Since Imelda was crawling north, Humberto’s massive power broke down the Bermuda high, a prominent steering current that helps Atlantic storms make landfall on the East Coast.

If Imelda had moved faster, Humberto wouldn’t have had enough time to strengthen and break down that current, which could have led to devastating impacts for the Southeast.

Criss-Cross Cone Crash

With Imelda being steered by Humberto’s efforts, their cones are now crossing, which is a spectacular and rare sight to behold.

Believe it or not, there have only been a couple of other times in which forecast cones crossed like this.

This also happened in 2020, when hurricanes Marco and Laura both formed in the Caribbean and impacted the Gulf Coast.

While they both threatened the Gulf Coast within a few days of each other, Marco was shredded by unfavorable conditions while Laura saw a strong Louisiana landfall.