Hurricane Helene (2006)

**Hurricane Helene** was one of the strongest hurricanes of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season. It is tied with Hurricane Gordon, which was also very strong. It was the ninth tropical storm, fourth hurricane and second strong hurricane of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season.

Helene was a long Cape Verde-type hurricane that formed in the extreme southeastern part of the North Atlantic Ocean. When it was at its strongest, it was a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. It reached this level as it travelled across the central Atlantic. It never hit land until the very end of its life as a weak extratropical cyclone. It only had a small effect in the northern British Isles.

## Storm history
In the second week of September, a strong tropical wave started moving off the coast of Africa. It was well-organized from the start, and on September 11, even before it entered the Atlantic, the National Hurricane Center believed that it could quickly turn into a tropical depression. That is what happened, and it became Tropical Depression Eight on the morning of September 12.

Because the depression was so big, it was quite slow to develop, combined with some easterly wind shear in the eastern Atlantic and because of the Saharan Air Layer to the north as it moved south of the Cape Verde islands. However, on September 13, the depression strengthened into Tropical Storm Helene. The storm slowly strengthened over the warm waters of the eastern Atlantic  as it tracked west-northwest.

Some dry air from the Saharan Air Layer kept slowing Helene's strengthening on September 14 as Helene was still a weak tropical storm. However, an sudden strengthening happened on September 15 as shear got lower.

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On the morning of September 16, the storm began to make a ragged eye and strengthened to Hurricane Helene. The intensity stayed the same for a while as a weak Category 1 hurricane, as the strengthening was slowed down by medium wind shear even though there was not a lot of dry air. Late that evening, the storm began to slowly get stronger once again. Helene also turned more northward and slowed down in the central Atlantic, which was because of a weakness in the subtropical ridge farther north created by Gordon. Because Helene turned north, the hurricane was moved away from any land areas. On the 20th, Helene turned back to the northwest and weakened a bit because wind shear got a bit bigger. That afternoon, the hurricane was downgraded to a Category 1 hurricane, which Helene stayed as until becoming extratropical. That movement kept going throughout the day, however, Helene began to turn more to the north-east that evening along the edge of the subtropical ridge, east of Bermuda. The strength stayed at around 80&nbsp;mph (130&nbsp;km/h) before strengthening a bit late on September 22, even though it lost some tropical features (it was put back down to a tropical storm for a short amount of time) as it sped up northeast in the north Atlantic. When QuikSCAT analysed it early on September 23, they said that it was definitely a high-end Category 1 hurricane with 90&nbsp;mph (145&nbsp;km/h) winds. After that, bigger shear weakened Helene once again, although it stayed as a hurricane-strength storm until it was fully extratropical on the morning of September 24. After becoming fully extratropical, the storm weakened as it moved eastward, becoming a gale center west of Ireland early on September 27. It eventually merged with a larger extratropical low near the northern end of the British Isles late on the 27th. As a weakened extratropical system, strong wind gusts were reported in Ireland and northern Scotland. The strongest wind gust in Ireland was at the Valentia Observatory, where 56&nbsp;mph (91&nbsp;km/h) gusts were reported. In Scotland, the strongest gust was on South Uist Island in the Outer Hebrides, where 74&nbsp;mph (118&nbsp;km/h) gusts were reported. No damage or deaths were reported because of Helene.

## Related pages
* 2006 Atlantic hurricane season

## References
## Other websites
* The NHC's archive on Hurricane Helene.