ROANOKE, Va. – The official peak of Atlantic hurricane season isn’t until September 10, but the tropics don’t care about “normal” this year. Tropical Storm Paulette formed over open waters Monday morning and Tropical Storm Rene formed Monday afternoon.
Thankfully neither storm is a threat to the U.S. within the next week.
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Paulette is the earliest ’P’ storm on record, beating the old record by 10 days. Rene is the earliest ’R’ storm on record, beating the old record by 11 days. This is according to Philip Klotzbach, of the Colorado State University Tropical Meteorology Project.
Tropical Depression (TD) 18 has formed near Cabo Verde Islands. Both TD 17 (in central tropical Atlantic) & 18 are forecast to get named later today. Next 2 names are Paulette & Rene. Current Record for earliest 16th & 17th Atlantic named storms:
— Philip Klotzbach (@philklotzbach) September 7, 2020
Philippe: 9/17/05
Rita: 9/18/05 pic.twitter.com/TwO58VmkVs
Closer to home, there’s another storm with only a 30% chance of getting a name within the next five days.
Name or not, this will be the main source for scattered showers and storms Wednesday, Thursday and perhaps even Friday of this week.
The only names left to the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season are Sally, Teddy, Vicky and Wilfred. After that, storms will be given letters to the Greek alphabet (Hurricane Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, etc.).