2020 set to be recordhurricane season
Forecasters predict storm forming will be 29th this year
A weather system brewing in theAtlantic is going to make history.
With a high chance of forming into a tropical cyclone within days, the storm — which would be namedTheta— willbecome the 29th of the year and will make the 2020 hurricane season the busiestonrecord.
Tropical Storm Eta, which brought record rains to South Florida on Sunday and Monday, brought the season total to 28, a tie with 2005, the yearofHurricanes Wilma and Katrina.
The next system is spinning up several hundred miles southwest of the Azores and is expected to form into a tropical or sub tropical storm within the next few days. In its 1
p.m. Monday advisory, the National Hurricane Center gave the system an 80% chance of forming in the next five days.
Should it form, it’ll be namedafter the eighth letter of theGreekalphabet, which forecasters turn to when they run out of regular-season
names.
“We are still watching it, but it’s becoming better organized as we speak,” Randy Atkins, a meteorologist withAccuWeather, said. “It seems more likely than not thatwithin thenext two or three days, itwillbecome a tropical storm.”
This systemisn’t expected to hit the U.S. The latest forecast track shows the it moving to the east through the Atlantic. While it’s not expected tobecomea hurricane, the system is already powerful, so once it develops, forecasters predict it should be a fairly robust tropical storm immediately, Atkins explained.
The 2005 season had a total of 31 tropical depressions, 27 of which became named storms with a 28th identified after a reanalysis of the season.
Even if 2020 does go on record as having the most named storms in history, 2005 still holds the record for having longer and more powerful storms. That year, seven storms reached Category 3 or higher, compared to five so far in 2020. The storms in 2005 were also longer lasting than the ones seen so far in 2020.
“Oneway tosumthis year
up is while this year has been hyper active interms of the number of storms we’ve had, we’ve been somewhat fortunate in thatwe haven’t had as many hurricanes that are powerful or as long lasting thatwe could have had,” Atkins said.
Forecasters are also keeping their eye on a tropical wave in the Caribbean that has a 50% chance of developing into a tropical depression later this week or over the weekend as it moves through the Lesser Antilles. Conditions in the area are favorable for development.
Even though it’s been a record year for storms, Florida has largely escaped the season’s fury. TropicalStorm Eta hit the Florida Keys late Sunday night, becoming the first storm of 2020 to make landfall in Florida. Eta brought powerful wind and flooding rains to much of South Florida.
South Florida can still expect to see anywhere from 6-9 inches of rain through Tuesday morning. AccuWeather forecasts already show that almost 16 inches of rain fell in Miramar, 13 inches in Pembroke Pines and more than 11 inches in Sunrise.
Eta is expected to strengthen again in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico with maximum sustained winds of 70 miles per hour, remaining just shy of hurricane.