Hurricane Systems
In record-shattering hurricane season, forecasters have exhausted all traditional names for storms after new 3 hurricane systems have formed in about six hours.
That’s forced them to begin using the Greek alphabet for only the second time since the 1950s.
It seems that the year 2020 still has a lot for humanity, for the first time and in 50 years, forecasters have to resort to the Greek alphabet to find names, and within only 6 hours, 3 new systems of hurricanes were formed in the Atlantic Ocean, according to news agencies.
The Atlantic’s record-breaking “crazy” hurricane season got a bizarre European remake Friday as forecasters ran out of traditional names and trotted out the Greek alphabet for subtropical storm Alpha. And it was misplaced geographically, bearing down on Portugal.
The busy Atlantic is beta testing the Greek alphabet as Beta formed late Friday afternoon.
This is only the second time National Hurricane Center forecasters have had to pull out the Greek alphabet for names, with the last time being 2005. Tropical Storm Wilfred, the last of traditional names, officially formed little more than an hour before Alpha, prompting the hurricane center to tweet “get out the Greek alphabet.”
3 New Hurricane Systems In 6 Hours Baffle Forecasters
And they quickly had to use it again, when a tropical depression in the western Gulf of Mexico became Tropical Storm Beta. That’s three storms forming in about six hours.
“It’s crazy,” said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy. “This is just off the charts., We’ve made a joke of breaking records.”
Both Wilfred and Alpha set records for earliest 21st and 22nd named Atlantic storms, beating 2005 by a few weeks.
Alpha is odd in another way. It’s misplaced into an area where storms don’t generally brew. That’s so unusual that Alpha barely shows up on the hurricane center’s real time storm tracking map, which is focused on the Americas. Only the “Al” of its Greek name shows and European forecasters are responsible for monitoring the small and weak Alpha.
But Alpha fits with the rest of this season in another way. About half of the storms this busy hurricane season have only lasted a few days and have been quite weak, McNoldy said. Vicky for example popped up quickly and soon dissipated without much notice. And with 22 storms only two of them — Laura and Teddy, which is still swirling — reached major hurricane status, which is also kind of unusual, McNoldy said.
And, why not add Tropical Storm #Beta to the list of storms that form today. This is insane. #TD22 pic.twitter.com/CjFcOpeWL1
— 🇺🇦 Brian McNoldy (@BMcNoldy) September 18, 2020
3 New Hurricane Systems In 6 Hours Baffle Forecasters
McNoldy said the environmental conditions reduce high level winds enough for storms to form, but not enough for them to strengthen or even survive long. La Nina, which is a cooling of parts of the equatorial Pacific that changes weather worldwide, is a factor in making some but not all of the Atlantic more active, he said. It doesn’t explain Alpha forming, he said.
McNoldy does not see a human-caused climate change connection at work in the number of storms.
Just to remind people, the hurricane center tweeted out the entire 24-letter Greek alphabet, with a red slash through Alpha. McNoldy joked that after that there’s no official name list, but the Russian alphabet is available.
Three Atlantic named storms have formed today: September 18, 2020 – #Wilfred #Alpha #Beta. The only other time on record that the Atlantic had 3 named storm formations on the same calendar day was August 15, 1893. #hurricane pic.twitter.com/uPWSyxFize
— Philip Klotzbach (@philklotzbach) September 18, 2020
There is no doubt that the year 2020 is an exceptional year by all standards in everything. Unfortunately, the year is still two and a half months in the year. We hope that they will pass peacefully, although the expectations of “astrologers” bear the opposite.
