Premature Tropical Storm Not Due to Global Warming, Scientists Say

The first named Atlantic storm of 2007 crept in today well before the season's official June 1 start, raising the question of whether global warming is responsible for the early arrival.

Flowers, tree leaves, birds and other signs of spring have appeared earlier in recent years at various spots globally, so can Subtropical Storm Andrea's arrival three weeks ahead of schedule also be blamed on climate change?

"Oh, gosh, no," said James Kossin, meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

It's not all that unusual for a storm to form early, and there is no real significance to Andrea's arrival in the second week of May, he said.

"There's enough standard deviation on either side of [the hurricane season dates] to not make a whole lot of difference," Kossin told LiveScience.