"Record ocean warmth means 2021 could be another busy year for tropical storms in the Atlantic."
"The record-setting hurricane season of 2020 has prompted the World Meteorological Organization’s hurricane experts to change how they name tropical storms and when to start issuing regular hurricane bulletins.
When Hurricanes Zeta, Eta and Iota slammed the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico in the first two weeks of November 2020, the rapidly growing list of unusual, similar-sounding names may have diluted critical safety messaging in the storm-plagued region, National Hurricane Center director Ken Graham said Wednesday, during a discussion of the changes at a meeting of the WMO’s Hurricane Committee.
There were a record number of named tropical storms in the Atlantic last year, and some storm-weary residents in hurricane-prone regions were getting the names mixed up, he said. Hurricane experts, the WMO announced, will stop using Greek alphabet names after exhausting the “regular” alphabet, which has only happened twice—in 2005 and last year. The committee is also retiring the names Eta, Iota and Laura, which were given to 2020 storms, and Dorian, from the 2019 season, because of the death and destruction that the hurricanes with those names caused."
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