CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Late Saturday night, Tropical Storm Eta officially formed south of Jamaica. Zeta had just tied 2005 for the most named tropical systems on record but now 2020 is by itself. This is the furthest we have gone into the Greek alphabet and there is still a month to go in our hurricane season.
2005 "technically" had 28 storms, but one subtropical storm was unnamed. But 2020 will now hold the record for named storms.
Eta will continue to march due west and is set to make landfall in Nicaragua on Tuesday. Conditions are favorable for Eta to strengthen into a category one hurricane before landfall. The Greek alphabet storms have also been quite strong. Delta, Epsilon, and Zeta all became hurricanes, and 2 of that made landfall in Louisiana.
The recent surge of storms and strength can be accredited to La Nina. The ENSO cycle officially started in September and we have seen a direct correlation with the increase in the number of named storms. A La Nina season will limit wind shear, which breaks up storms allowing for them to intensify more easily.
2020 also holds the record for most tropical systems to make landfall in the United States. Zeta was officially the 11th storm to make landfall beating the previous record back in 1916 of 9 landfalls.
2020 Landfall storms:
Bertha, Cristobal, Fay, Hanna, Isaias, Laura, Marco, Sally, Beta, Delta and Zeta.
Eta will bring heavy flooding rain and damaging winds to Central America but will die out as it moves inland.
There are currently no other waves being watched or monitored by the National Hurricane Center but as mentioned above... we are not done with our hurricane season just yet.