User:Hurricane Angel Saki/Sandbox/Tropical Storm Alma (1974)

Tropical Storm Alma, the first named storm to develop in the 1974 Atlantic hurricane season, was a very short lived tropical storm that made a rare Venezuelan landfall after making the southernmost tropical cyclone landfall on Trinidad since a storm in 1933. The storm formed from an area of cumulonimbus clouds along a disturbance associated with the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) on August 12, but advisories were not issued until August 13, when it was named at peak intensity. After being named, Alma moved at an unusually brisk pace of between 20 mi/h to 25 mi/h through the southeastern Carribean Sea, causing numerous watches and gale warnings to be issued throughout the Carribean, including Columbia. This brisk pace was also responsible for the small amount of time it spent over Trinidad, which totalled three hours.

Alma was notable for its high forward speed, unusually low latitude, and for indirectly causing a plane crash when a Venezuelan passenger plane crashed on Isla Margarita, killing all but one aboard. The plane crash was responsible for 47 deaths, with two other deaths being reported on Trinidad. Damage totals from the hurricane are unknown.

Storm history
The initial formation of Alma was traced back to a strong tropical disturbance associated with the ITCZ that left the coast of Africa on August 9. Around this time, Dakar, Senegal was reporting mid-tropospheric winds of 75 mi/h, the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. A collection of rapidly-forming cumulonimbus clouds were observed to grow along the area and merge together, forming a tropical disturbance with a weak cyclonic vortex on August 10. The disturbance moved slowly over the Atlantic Ocean, with movie loops showing signs of a circulation on August 11, but it wasn't until the next day when ship reports showed that the disturbance became a tropical depression at 18:00 UTC around 10° north latitude, a latitude it would remain around throughout its lifetime. Although it was at depression strength, operationally, it wasn't until Navy recon reached the storm on August 13 and reported winds of 65 mi/h, gusts of up to 75 mi/h, and a central pressure of 1007 mbar that advisories were started and the storm was named Alma while the center was 375 mi east of Trinidad and Tobago. This same pass also reported that the storm had a circular eye with a diameter of 36 mi; the only report of an eye from this storm. The storm's center was alligned more to the south, causing gale-force winds to extend 75 mi to the north while extending only 25 mi to the south. At the time, further intensification was predicted and the possibility that Alma could reach hurricane strength prior to landfall on Trinidad was given, but the storm would not strengthen past the peak it reached when Navy recon investigated the cyclone, although an Air Force plane reported a squall of 80 mi/h at flight level.

After being named, Alma moved eastward at a pace of 23 mi/h, which NHC Director Neil Frank noted was unusually rapid for a tropical cyclone at this time and location, while causing sea levels to rise up to 15 ft ahead of it. Alma was able to move and maintain its low latitude movement to the west due to a strong subtropical ridge, which was at an unusually lower latitude than expected in August. On August 14, the storm made landfall on Trinidad with winds of 55 mi/h, becoming the southernmost landfall on that island since a storm in 1933. The storm moved across Trinidad in only three hours, and, although disrupted from its landfall and barely tropical, it was able to maintain itself despite the high forward speed preventing any reintensification. The storm transitioned the Gulf of Paria then made its second and final landfall on the Paria Peninsula of Venezuela. The high mountains in Venezuela took a large toll on the storm, ripping the circulation and causing Alma to be downgraded to a tropical depression on August 15 while crossing Lake Maracaibo. The final advisory issued on the cyclone by the National Hurricane Center showed that the remains of Alma were in the northern part of Columbia, still moving at 25 mi/h, and later that day, all identity of the cyclone disappeared. Although the possibility was given that Alma could reintensify upon exiting land into the southwestern Caribbean Sea,, the storm did not redevelop east of Central America. However, the remnants of Alma would eventually travel westward, reaching the Pacific Ocean where they would reintensify, becoming Hurricane Joyce.