I’ve been waiting for November to end so that I could mark the end of Hurricane Season 2020. But we can’t assume there won’t be more storms!
Hurricane Season 2020 ended “officially” on Monday. The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.
With the crazy year 2020 decided to be, it’s great to mark the end of the season. But at the same time, we have to be realistic. We’d probably make a huge mistake to think there’s no chance we’ve seen the last of tropical weather this year.
No, I’m not trying to be a pessimist.
2020 marked only the second time we dipped into the Greek alphabet for hurricane names. After we exhausted the 21 names the World Meteorological Organization established, Greek letters stepped in for the storm names. The first time that happened was back in 2005. That year brought us a total of 28 named storms. It also delivered a record 15 hurricanes. Of those, seven became “major” hurricanes (Category 3 or stronger). Four reached Category 5 status:   Emily,  Katrina,  Rita, and  Wilma. The Greek-named storms followed. We had Tropical Storm Alpha, Hurricane Beta, then Tropical Storms Gamma, Delta, Epsilon and Zeta.
But let’s talk about Zeta for a second. Talk about a crazy year! Zeta became a tropical storm well past the season ended. In fact, it became a tropical storm on Dec. 30, 2005! Thanks to its late formation, it became only the second storm to exist in two calendar years. It dissipated on Jan. 6, 2006.
Hurricane Season 2020 (so far) brought us 30 named storms, 13 hurricanes and six major hurricanes. Fortunately, only one, Hurricane Iota, reached Category 5 strength.
We can hope that we’re done. But given the late arrival of 2005’s Zeta, I’ll keep my fingers crossed…but I won’t hold my breath!
