Or does one hurricane pretty much suck all the energy from the water and air and make it impossible for another big storm to form?
This, IIRC. If they are anywhere close to one another, they’ll merge.
In 1998, four hurricanes formed simultaneously. If they are too close together they’ll merge into one system, but this satellite photo from Wikipedia shows how close together three of them were.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1998_four_hurricanes.png
This is two more hurricanes close together, also from 1998.
They don’t always merge together. There is something called the Fujiwhara effect, in which the storms basically rotate around each other.
-D/a
If one hurricane becomes stationary, or nearly so, it will stir up the ocean waters, bringing cooler water to the surface. The sea surface temps must be at a minimum of 79-80 degrees to sustain the fuel for the hurricane. When that hurricane moves on, and regains the necessary fuel in warmer water temps, another close by cane may enter the stirred up region and dissipate.
I don’t know whether it was ever proven, but I heard a theory (speculation?) that hurricane Camille in 1969 was actually two hurricanes that merged into one. Camille was a small but incrediably intense hurricane. One of the few hurricanes to actually come ashore as a Cat 5 hurricane. Most major hurricanes, even ones that are Cat 5 at some time in their lives, lose strength as they approach the coast. Camille was just strance. Very unusual. If you look at the storm tracks for 1969 one could easily believe an extra hurricane could slip in there unnoticed.
Well, we’ve answered the first part of the question. The second part would be to have two making landfall simultaneously.
I don’t think so. A hurricane making landfall is such a rare event I can’t imagine that it happened simultaneously (of course, maybe if we count typhoons in the Pacific it’s possible).
Didn’t a typhoon just hit the Philippines today? So Irene and something made landfall at about the same time. (Was it called Nanmadol? News was not very clear on that.)
It’s more common than you might think, at least if you allow the landfalls to be within a day or so of each other. Here’s a couple of examples:[ul][]Tropical Storm Bonnie made landfall in Florida on August 12, 2004; Hurricane Charley made landfall in Cuba shortly after midnight on August 13.[]Hurricane Ivan made landfall in Alabama on September 16, 2004; Hurricane Jeanne made landfall in Puerto Rico on September 15, 2004, and made its second landfall on Hispaniola on the 16th.[*]Hurricane Wilma made its second landfall in Florida on October 24, 2005. Tropical Storm Alpha made landfall in the Dominican Republic on October 23.[/ul]Now, in none of these cases did the storms form within a day of each other (six days, eleven days, and seven days apart respectively), but closely-spaced landfalls can certainly happen.
I don’t know if most canes lose intensity as they approach the coast. In the Atlantic Ocean, they have to cross the very warm waters of the Gulf stream, which can intensify them. Such was the case of Hugo in 1989. Other canes which intensified at landfall were the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 (before they were named), Agnes 1972, Frederick 1979, and Elena 1985. Hurricane Pictures 1969-1989
Interestingly, based on the names, there must have been another named storm in between (the ‘H’ storm)!
Tropical storm, yes, but not a hurricane: Hermine http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/1998hermine.html Tropical cyclones get a name when they become tropical storms (39 mph).