Cape Verde hurricane

A good portion of Cape Verde storms are large, and some, such as hurricanes Allen, Ivan, Dean, and Irma have set various records.

Research projects since the 1970s have been launched to understand the formation of these storms and their movement through the Main Development Region.

The disturbances move off the western coast of Africa and become tropical cyclones soon after moving off the coast,[2] within 10 to 15 degrees latitude, or 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) to 1,600 kilometres (990 mi), of the Cape Verde Islands;[1] this comprises the tropical latitudes east of the 40th meridian west.

Twenty nations took part in the GATE research project in 1974, where Douglas DC-6 aircraft examined tropical waves which spawned Cape Verde hurricanes.

[3] In 2006, there was a two-month research project known as NAMMA-06 (short for NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Activities)[4] which flew Douglas DC-8s into seedling disturbances in the eastern Atlantic which had the potential to become Cape Verde hurricanes.