The Atlantic Hurricane Season officially ends on Nov. 30. But it’s now slowing down: Subtropical Storm Theta formed Monday night.
At this point, just about anything that happens in this year’s Atlantic Hurricane Season will break a record. The latest record breaker will be Subtropical Storm Theta.
It formed Monday night in the central Atlantic Ocean. Theta became the 29th named storm of the year. It’s also the eighth storm named for a letter of the Greek alphabet. As we know, the World Meteorological Organization maintains the annual name lists. Those lists consist of 21 storm names. They intentionally omit names beginning with the letters Q,U, X, Y,  and  Z. Coming up with enough names beginning with those letters apparently proved too difficult a challenge.
When the 21st name is used, we move to Greek letters. This year marks only the second time we resorted to Greek letters.
The first time was 2005. That year, we went as far as Tropical Storm Zeta. One curious point: though hurricane season was long over, Zeta formed on Dec. 28, 2005. So if 2020 continues being 2020, we’re in for a long ride still!
It looks like Subtropical Storm Theta is going to move further east, toward Gibraltar. I don’t wish a hurricane on anyone, but at this point, I think we’ve been through enough. So any storm that misses the U.S. is a good storm in my book.
There’s already another system that could develop. Its track looks as if it will head toward Nicaragua in Central America. If it becomes a named storm, it will be #30. And the next Greek letter would be Iota.
If there’s one thing we can be sure of this year, we’re learning more about the Greek alphabet than some of us thought we ever would!
Any bets on how far into the Greek alphabet we’ll get?
