For East Coast voyagers, Bermuda is an attractive option for an offshore passage. Either as a destination or a stopping point before proceeding south to the Bahamas and the Caribbean or east to the Azores and the Med. There’s also the offshore races from the East Coast: Newport/Bermuda, Marion/Bermuda, Annapolis/Bermua and others. As such a popular destination, the weather surrounding Bermuda is naturally of interest to voyagers. And according to a recent study, those waters are experiencing increasingly stormy weather during the last 60 years.
According to the study, the researchers noted “…a statistically significant increase (r = 0.94, p = 0.02) in TC intensity in the Bermuda area with an increase in the Vmax median value of 30 kts (4.9 kts per decade) from 33 to 63 kts (1955–2019) and an increased trend observed for the period 1980–2019 of 7.7 kts which is in line with the increase of 8 kts per decade…”
So this study found that storms passing through the waters around Bermuda have gotten stronger, increasing from an average of 33 knots to 63 knots, or about eight knots per decade. For Bermuda-bound sailors it appears that good weather data is becoming more important than ever.
The study is available here (Increasing tropical cyclone intensity and potential intensity in the subtropical Atlantic around Bermuda from and ocean heat content perspective 1955-2019).
