Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:
Wayne.B wrote:
On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:22:26 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

NOAA must be getting desperate this late into the season that their
predictions for named storms is jetting into the crapper. They
already named one Sub Tropical Storm, first of the TD of the season -
now there is this one.

Yes, and the next thing you know we'll be seeing another well
researched article showing that the number of tropical storms has
doubled.

Wayne,
From what I can tell, the current definition of tropical storm goes
back to at least 1992, and probably is older. It describes a type of
storm, and the intensity of the storm and includes storms that develop
in the Tropics or the Subtropics. While the conditions are greatest for
a Tropical Storm to originate in the Tropics, it is not limited to the
Tropics.


Wayne and Tom,
It appears that the definition used to include historical Tropical
Storms and Hurricanes from 1886 forward is the same one used today.

3. Data

a. Atlantic Basin Tropical Cyclones

The positions and intensities (sustained wind speed and minimum surface
pressure) of all Atlantic basin tropical cyclones of at least tropical
storm strength have been archived and are continually being updated by
the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, Florida. (The `Atlantic
basin' is defined as the tropical and subtropical regions north of the
equator in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of
Mexico.) This data set extends from 1886 to 1990 and is described in
detail by Jarvinen et al. (1984). This ``Best Track'' data set (as it is
known since it is composed of the ``best'' estimate of positions and
intensities in a post-analysis of all data available) or HURDAT (short
for HURricane DATa) has been used quite extensively in our Tropical
Meteorology Project at Colorado State University.

We have followed the recommendations by Neumann et al. (1987) to use
tropical cyclone statistics based upon data since the mid-1940's, when
organized aircraft reconnaissance began, since this ``probably best
represents Atlantic tropical cyclone frequencies''. The same logic
follows for the day to day assessment of the intensity of individual
storms; again because in the earlier period ``storms that were detected
could have been mis-classified as to intensity''.

from:

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/sahel/index.html