West Palm Beach, FLA. (WPEC) — The system we’ve been watching northwest of the Azores has officially transitioned into Subtropical Storm Karen, according to the National Hurricane Center. While Karen is now a named storm, it’s expected to be a short-lived one.
Karen formed from a frontal low—a low-pressure system originally attached to cold and warm fronts—that became occluded (meaning the fronts wrapped around the center and lost their distinct boundaries) early on October 8. Since then, it’s been shedding those frontal features and developing more organized thunderstorms near its center.
Based on all this data, Karen was upgraded to a subtropical storm with winds of 40 knots (about 46 mph). Subtropical storms are hybrid systems that get energy from both warm ocean water and upper-level atmospheric features, like troughs and cold air aloft…