With the emergence of Tropical Storm Wilfred over the Atlantic Ocean on Friday, traditional hurricane names for this year have run out. It is the first time since 2005 that meteorologists have had to switch back to the Greek alphabet for storms.
Tropical Storm Wilfred formed southwest of Cape Verde on Friday and is now making its way west. Wilfred is the 21st storm of this season and has used the last letter of the traditional hurricane alphabet. Last week storms also formed Rene, Sally, Teddy and Vicky.
From now on, meteorologists will use Greek names such as Alpha, Beta and Gamma for the rest of the season. This alphabet will only apply to storms that originate over the Atlantic Ocean and therefore not to storms elsewhere.
It is only the second time that meteorologists have had to switch to the Greek alphabet. Only in the busy hurricane season of 2005, including the devastating storm Katrina, did this happen.
Storm season will last more than two months
Meteorologists had already expected that 2020 would be a very busy storm season, with between 19 and 25 storms.
The season will last more than two months. Last week there were at the same moment five tropical storms active over the Atlantic Ocean. That was the first time since 1971.
The storms will cause major nuisance this year, especially in the United States. So did Hurricane Sally Wednesday even before major flooding in the southeast of the country. Hurricane Laura, which made landfall in the US in August, left at least 14 dead and shut down power and water supplies for hundreds of thousands of people.
The traditional hurricane names are reused every six years, except in the case of storms with major consequences, such as in the case of Katrina (now called Katia). Hurricane names Harvey and Irma from 2017 are also no longer used.
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