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Tropical Storm Zeta Forms in Atlantic
APSR writes "Even though the Atlantic hurricane season official ends on November 30th, more storms can form and still count towards the total for the year!
According to MSN.com Weather News, Tropical Storm Zeta was formed in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean on December 30th. This storm extends the record-breaking 2005 season to 27 storms, and it's the 6th storm named using the Greek alphabet.
According to Wikipedia, Zeta is the latest a tropical cyclone was formed in the Atlantic, forming around 11 AM ET; this dethrones Hurricane Alice of 1954, which formed December 30th around 2 AM ET. The storm itself will continue to strengthen for 12-24 hours, then weaken; it will not likely make landfall." We've already set records this year, as previously reported.
Apparently, everything starts over in the new year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Alice
At the time, the National Weather Service used the same naming list each year, so the name given to this storm was "Alice" and it was designated as a part of the 1955 Atlantic hurricane season. However, it was found during post-storm analysis that the storm had actually formed on December 30, and was instead a part of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. Therefore, that season had two storms named "Alice": the first storm of the season, and the last. Had Alice been discovered in 1954, it would have been named Irene, the next name on the 1954 list.
They already went from A to Z and started at the beginning. I think they have gone through A and Z twice already.
..) Zeta is only the 6th letter, making for the 26+6=32nd storm of the year.
After the female names run out, they use letters from the Greek alphabet. (alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta,
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According to Wikipedia, it was only detected in January, named according to that year's scheme, and then later proven that it must have reached naming-strength in December (which means it should've been named Irene).
Except they don't use every letter of the alphabet. No Q, U, X, Y, or Z.
This is namned storm 27 for the Atlantic basin.
but I think the National Hurricane Center makes a much more relevent and useful link when it comes to HURRICANES.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov
It was named Alice because it was thought that it had formed in early January, but after naming it and going back through the record, they found that it had actually formed on December 30th, and not in January 1955 as was thought. Because it was already named, it was decided that the name would stay Alice, but it is still consitered the last storm of the 1954 season, giving that season 2 A storms.
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
This is what the "greenies" forget. they get all up in arms about there being more storms in a hurricane season when we never used to record storms. we only used to record hurricanes.
How did I know this would be modded up? From the article:
The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the busiest on record, with 27 tropical storms, besting the old record of 21 set in 1933. Fourteen of them grew into hurricanes, among the Katrina, beating the record of 12 set in 1969. Hurricanes Dennis, Rita and Wilma also caused significant damage in the U.S.
And that's the one that's going up. And we're not seeing a dramatic drops in any of them.
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"If you only count hurricanes, you will see this is a milder season than any we've had in the last 25 years except for some late 1990s years."
That depends on how you measure "mild". For instance, we had the strongest hurricane ever measured in the Atlantic this year (by pressure).
We also had two category 5 hurricanes, making it one of the most intense seasons on record.
This was certainly an upswing in hurricane output. Of course, it's an upswing that had been predicted since the lull began, since hurricanes tend to come in waves. We should have an interesting next few years....
They've been naming Storms as well for over 50 years.
Since 1953, Atlantic tropical storms have been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane Center.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Yeah, like those "greenies" at NOAA:
The frequency of storms seems to be cyclical and unrelated to global warming trends. Their strength, however, is related to the temperature increase.
The NOAA link I give above notes that in 1933 there were 21 named storms. So apparently they were recording and naming them seventy years ago. When exactly is it that you're claiming "we only used to record hurricanes"?
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We also had two category 5 hurricanes, making it one of the most intense seasons on record.
Just to add to your little stats refuting the first point:
This season we had 3 of the 6 strongest hurricanes ever recorded (by pressure).
Water Vapour is reactive and only serves to amplify other climate forcings. It actually is going up in sympathy with other greenhouse gases as the Earth is getting warmer. It will also continue to increase for centuries after C02 stabilizes in the atmosphere as the ocean has a very long lag time. Unfortunately, the only practical way to reduce H20 levels in the atmosphere is to cool down the planet because H20 is generated in such huge quantities by evaporation from the oceans and plants. Any attempt to reduce evaporation by means such as cutting forests will actually increase temps more by decreasing evaporative cooling and convection.
PS: Why do so many people bring up the water vapour issue? If one is smart enough to know that water vapour is a greenhouse gas, wouldn't one be smart enough to have a basic understanding of the water cycle?
We haven't been keeping comprehensive records of Atlantic storm activity for that long. The National Weather Service says this severe storm season is the result of several periodic climate factors peaking simultaneously, not due to the average global temperature increase that's been going on: thus far it's been too small.
The signs of the formation of the tropical depression that became TS Bret was noticed on satellite, and a hurricane hunter (WC-130, IIRC)just happened to be in the air to be sent out to verify it.
TS Gert was very similar; a short-lived Bay of Campeche storm.
Ditto Jose
Lee was a tropical storm for only one advisory cycle (six hours). The upgrade to tropical storm was based off satellite imagery, see the discussion
and so on...
Also compare the 1933 chart to the 2005 chart Note how nothing was noticed east of 45 West. While it is possible that '33 was just a 'close in' season, I wouldn't bet the house that there were no tropical storms out in the mid to eastern atlantic
Oh, and to clear up something that seems to be confusing some people... The practice of naming storms did not start until 1953 (1950, if you consider the phonetic alphabet to be names). However, meteorolgists tend to not be too literal when they talk about 'named storms'. That is, they will talk about how many named storms there were in 1933 even though storms weren't being named back then. In such cases, what is being referred to is the number of storms that attained tropical storm strength (storms that would have received a name had that been the practice).
This season we had 3 of the 6 strongest hurricanes ever recorded (by pressure).
Kind of, but also kind of misleading because the numbers prior to 1970 are almost all pressure at landfall (rather than lowest pressure including off the coast). And if you count tropical cyclones worldwide then the strongest hurricane of 2005 (Wilma) is tied for 19th place.
By deaths, 1780 is the worst year with 3 storms killing over 1000 people--including one that killed 22,000 and caused such damage that late-arriving observers mistakenly believed it had been accompanied by an earthquake.
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