On October 25, a trough of low pressure formed in the western Atlantic, extending from near the central Caribbean islands to near the U.S. East coast. The system was producing a large area of disorganized thunderstorm activity. A low formed along the trough around October 28, but it was non-tropical in nature. The system flirted with tropical status, but didn't quite have enough convective activity to be classified a tropical cyclone. The low passed near Bermuda on October 30, but strong upper-level winds prevented further development. After moving further northeastward, the system found a pocket of favorable conditions and began to strengthen and develop a warm core. On November 1, it became Tropical Storm Martin around 550 miles east-northeast of Bermuda.
The storm had a curved-band appearance on satellite imagery, with most convection extending west and north of the center. Sea surface temperatures weren't particularly warm, but a cold upper atmosphere generated enough temperature gradient for plentiful instability. In addition, a favorable jet interaction helped to drive intensification in Martin. On November 2, the storm accelerated northeastward as it felt the mid-latitude southwesterly flow, and developed a small eye on satellite imagery; as a result, Martin was upgraded to a hurricane that day. Since Martin and Lisa were hurricanes simultaneously, this became the third time in recorded history that two Atlantic hurricanes coexisted in November, after 1932 and 2001.
The cyclone intensified further on November 3, reaching peak winds of 85 mph. However, it was also swiftly becoming extratropical, with the inner core becoming less defined, but the radius of gale force winds ballooning quickly outward as the low deepened. Martin's transition to an extratropical storm on November 3 was extreme in many ways in fact: by the time it became post-tropical, it was absolutely rocketing northeastward at almost 60 mph. Tropical storm force winds extended across a diameter of over 1000 miles, stretching across a majority of the Atlantic around 50 ° N latitude. Finally, though Martin achieved a minimum pressure of 960 mb as a tropical cyclone, it deepened to a low of 932 mb after transition.
After the low's peak in strength on November 4, it began to slowly wind down and move more slowly to the east. Ex-Martin ultimately dissipated northwest of Ireland a few more days after that.
The image above shows Martin after strengthening to a hurricane on November 2.
Martin did not directly affect any land areas, but became a potent extratropical storm with hurricane force winds over the far northern Atlantic.
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