Hurricane Alex

It is only January, but we have had the first Atlantic hurricane of the 2016 season.

Hurricane Alex was a category one storm over the Azores. Wikipedia has an excellent article on the storm.

The storm had an interesting history, forming near the Bahamas, before bringing gales to Bermuda. It then tracked southerly, south of the Azores and began to intensify.

It is generally stated that hurricanes require sea surface temperature of 26C to form, but the sea surface was just 20C.

Upper atmosphere temperatures, however, were unusually low. It is the difference in temperature that drives the hurricane heat engine.

Some have argued that global warming, with rising sea temperatures might not result in more intense storms if there is also an equivalent warming of upper atmosphere.

I am guessing that the warming of the atmosphere and oceans will not be in sync, so there will likely be a period of strange storms such as hurricane Alex in January.

From wikipedia:

An eye feature soon appeared, marking intensification, within a complex of several banding features. The 20 mi (25 km) wide feature cleared out early on January 14 and was surrounded by a ring of −76°F (−60°C) cloud tops. The storm remained vertically stacked with a cold-core low, though the development of upper-level outflow indicated the system was becoming increasingly tropical.

Despite moving over 68°F (20°C) waters, Alex continued to deepen and transitioned into a full-fledged tropical cyclone by 09:00 UTC. The transition was enabled by colder-than-average upper-tropospheric temperatures which created greater instability than would otherwise be expected.

Wikipedia also states that there was less damage than feared in the Azores. I am wondering what the preciptation was like for the storm. Rainfall has been a factor in damage for some of the recent storms, together with flooding.