Bertha herald of things to come?

On July 9, 1996, the Lowcountry poised to evacuate for a rare, early season Cape Verde hurricane; its name was Bertha. On Thursday, Tropical Storm Bertha spun off the Cape Verde islands.

Whoa, don't spit that coffee. Yet. This Bertha is forecast to stay out in the wide open sea east of Bermuda. But a Cape Verde storm forming so early suggests that predictions of a busy season might be a bit closer to the mark than in the past few years.

And this Bertha is still a long way off. On Thursday it was 2,800 miles from Bermuda.

"Especially way out there, a lot of things can happen," meteorologist Dan Kottlowski said. "Which begs the question, could this Bertha do the same thing (as the last one)? Well, yes, it's possible. The big question (with Cape Verde storms) is when are they going to start re-curving to the northwest? Computer models say Bertha will by Sunday. If it doesn't make that turn, we'll certainly have to have some concern for the East Coast."

Kottlowski works for AccuWeather.com, a private forecasting company. The Post and Courier is an AccuWeather.com customer.

In historical records, there's a strong association between early season African coast storms and active years, said meteorologist Stan Goldenberg on an Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory Web site. Kottlowski pointed to Bertha in 1996 as an example of that.

National Hurricane Center forecasters, though, don't agree. "It's not a direct relationship. Where storms form is not an indication of how active a season it will be," said meteorologist Dennis Feltgen, the center's public affairs officer.

In 1996, Bertha was spotted by satellite on July 5 as a tropical depression well southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. By July 12 it was a hurricane off Florida. More than 750,000 people were ordered to evacuate the northern coastal counties in South Carolina.

The storm passed within 100 miles of Charleston and made landfall on the beaches north of Wilmington, N.C. It killed eight people and caused an estimated $250 million in damages. It was followed in September by Hurricane Fran, making landfall in nearly the same place, killing 24 people and causing billions of dollars in damage.

The two hurricanes followed a very early season tropical storm named Arthur. It formed off the Bahamas on June 17, and also passed just offshore. This year, Arthur formed at the end of May — before the official June 1 "opening" of the season. But that was off Central America.

The "Cape Verde" season normally runs mid-August to mid-October. Those storms pose the greatest threat to the Lowcountry. An early-forming Cape Verde storm suggests trouble, but it's too soon to say, Kottlowski said. "What does this mean for the people in Charleston and the Southeast? Not much."

Yet.

Reach Bo Petersen at 745-5852 or bpetersen@ postandcourier.com.