Starting with Arlene in June and culminating this week with the florida-bound Wilma, the Atlantic Ocean has made a historic trek through the alphabet this season.
We are on the verge of the first ever named tropical storm "Alpha" in the Atlantic basin as tropical depression 25 has formed.
At 11:00 am EDT, tropical depression 25 formed 200 miles southwest of San Juan, PR. This is the 25th tropical depression of the season, and when the depression is upgraded to a tropical storm, it will become the 22nd named storm. AccuWeather.com Meteorologists are forecasting tropical depression 25 to become tropical storm Alpha by this evening. When that occurs, it will be the first time in the history of the Atlantic Basin that a storm was named Alpha.
With Wilma, there have been 21 named storms in the Atlantic this year. Tying the record, set back in 1933.
There's still eight more weeks before the hurricane season ends Nov. 30. If 25 forms into Alpha it will break that record and be the first time in 52 years the National Hurricane Center will exhaust its 21-name list.
It skips names beginning with Q, U, X, Y, and Z.
According to the NHC, the yearly average for named storms in the Atlantic is 10. This year, there have been a total of 21. Given the fact that there is still close to two months until the end of hurricane season, it is quite possible and probable that the total named storms will exceed 21, setting a record and marking the first time a "Plan B" will be used for identifying storms.
"If we get up into that league, we'll have issues larger than naming these storms," said Frank Lepore, spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami. "The new phrase will be hurricane fatigue. Let's coin that right now."
To complicate matters, a storm name is retired if it causes widespread damage and deaths. So if there is a deadly Hurricane Alpha, what is it replaced with when it's retired?
The reason for so many storms this year has to do with huge, decade-long weather patterns that meteorologists are just beginning to understand. The 1950s and 1960s had more hurricanes and tropical storms than average; the 1970s, 1980s and mid-1990s had fewer than average.
Then, in the mid-1990s, meteorologists began to notice the cycle changing again. In 1995, there were 19 named storms, ending with Tanya.
The hurricane center began using name lists for tropical storms in 1953, replacing a system of identifying them by latitude and longitude. The names were exclusively women's until 1979, when men's and women's names were interchanged.
-- Compiled from wire reports
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