Hurricane Season Goes Greek with Atlantic Storms Alpha and Beta

Read also: Greta Thunberg and Young Activists Talk Climate Action with Angela Merkel

That’s so unusual that Alpha barely shows up on the hurricane center’s real-time storm tracking map, which is focused on the Americas.

Only the “Al” of its Greek name shows and it was expected to dissipate in less than a day.

But Alpha fits with the rest of this season in another way. About half of the storms this busy hurricane season have only lasted a few days and have been quite weak, McNoldy said.

Vicky for example popped up quickly and soon dissipated without much notice.

And with 22 storms only two of them — Laura and Teddy, which is still swirling — reached major hurricane status, which is also kind of unusual, McNoldy said.

McNoldy said the environmental conditions reduce high-level winds enough for storms to form, but not enough for them to strengthen or even survive long.

Read also: Oxfam: Richest 1% Produces Twice the Carbon Emissions than the Global Poor

La Nina, which is a cooling of parts of the equatorial Pacific that changes weather worldwide, is a factor in making some but not all of the Atlantic more active, he said.

It doesn’t explain Alpha forming, he said.