A vigorous tropical wave moved over Senegal and then emerged into the Atlantic Ocean on September 6. Upon hitting water, it already had a well-defined circulation. Only a day later, the system was classified Tropical Depression Eighteen just east of the Cape Verde islands. Ocean temperatures were not as warm in the far east Atlantic and the storm wasn't producing especially strong convection, but it developed banding features. This prompted an upgrade to Tropical Storm Rene the afternoon of the 7th as the system moved over the islands, producing heavy rains and gale force winds. Rene broke the record for earliest "R" storm set by Rita of 2005, which was named on September 18.
The system was moving westward at a fairly fast clip, so it had moved out of the islands by the afternoon of the 8th. Despite a moist atmosphere, Rene had almost nothing in the way of a central dense overcast and in fact weakened briefly to a tropical depression late that night. By morning, however, the system had produced a large burst of thunderstorm activity and it soon regained tropical storm strength. Rene moved west-northwestward throughout the next couple of days and remained pretty ragged. It seemed that dry air aloft was offsetting other favorable factors and preventing Rene from maintaining any semblence of organization. The repeated waxing and waning of the system caused some fluctuations in the intensity, but the system was a minimal tropical storm again on September 11.
Meanwhile, Rene's window of light upper-level winds was coming to a close as a trough to the west began to exert its influence in the form of increasing wind shear. On September 12, the system weakened to a tropical depression and turned more to the right. Intermittent popups were all the storm could manage over the next couple of days as it gradually spun down. The ridge north of Rene began to build back in too and slowed the cyclone's forward motion to a standstill. Unfavorable atmospheric conditions caused the storm's center to lose definition and it degenerated into a remnant low on September 13.
Rene produced little to no deep convection during its time as a tropical cyclone.
After bringing rain to the Cape Verde islands, Rene did not affect any further landmasses.
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