© NOAA
A satellite image showing Cristobal moving over southern Mexico on Thursday, June 4, 2020.
Tropical Storm Cristobal already has claimed its fame as
the earliest third named tropical storm system on record in the Atlantic basin. It also did something else that had AccuWeather Lead Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski saying, "This does not happen very often."
Cristobal developed from the leftovers of Tropical Storm Amanda, the first named storm of the Pacific hurricane season. Amanda pummeled areas of Central America during the final weekend of May,
causing at least 26 deaths and forcing at least 8,000 people to be evacuated in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
Amanda appeared to wrap up off the coast of Guatemala, but then it moved inland over the country, which is "rare to see ... let alone during late May," Kottlowski said.
"Once Amanda moved inland, the lower-level part of the storm fell apart, but the upper-level part survived and moved to the western Yucatan," Kottlowski said.
"Cristobal's development was associated with a large counter-clockwise wind pattern referred to as a gyre. The Central American Gyre (CAG) is more common during the late summer and fall season."
In this instance, the gyre's circulation forced what was left of Amanda to move back over very warm water in the southern Bay of Campeche "and a low-level circulation quickly formed under that upper-level feature," Kottlowski said. "It did not take time - given the 29- to 30-degree-Celsius [mid-80s F] water - to help create thunderstorms, lowering pressure and a coherent low-level circulation which has become Cristobal."
Comment: In the same country 24 hours earlier lightning strikes killed a total of at least 25 in a single day.