Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground had an interesting blog entry about hurricanes that reach northern locations.  He pointed out that the storm that used to be Hurricane Oho in the Central Pacific was now headed for the Alaskan Panhandle, where it was expected to cause strong wind gusts and heavy surf along the Aleutian Islands.  He points out that “an unusual number of these storms have occurred in the past two years–four out of the ten storms. Another one–currently dubbed Invest 95E–could join the club next week.”  The map of these unusual hurricane tracks below is from NOAA and reproduced in his blog.

The number of high-latitude storms that have occurred in the northern Pacific in the last two years is no doubt linked to the pool of unusually warm water which has resided there for the last two years.  I’ve posted a map from the Climate Reanalyzer which shows this pool in today’s sea surface temperature anomalies.  If the ocean temperatures continue to keep warming in the coming years, the movement of hurricanes to northern locations could become more frequent and could impact areas that have not historically seen much tropical storm activity in the past.

northern pacific hurricane paths   sst anomalies pacific 10-11-2015