Running Out Of Atlantic Tropical Storm Names Again?

Hurricane Lee off the U.S. East Coast on Sept. 14.
There's been a near record number of tropical
storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic this year. 

 It might not seem it, but it's been an incredibly busy tropical Atlantic hurricane season so far. 

At the moment, Tropical Storm Phillippe is wandering aimlessly in the central Atlantic. Tropical Storm Rina also formed way out there the other day. 

Another trailing system has a decent shot at building into a tropical storm.  The hurricane season lasts through November. And there's now only four names left on the 2023 hurricane or tropical storm list: Sean, Tammy, Vince and Whitney. 

It doesn't seem like it's been that busy because most storms have mercifully not made landfall.  So far, only Hurricanes Idalia and Lee, and Tropical Storm Ophelia have caused much trouble in the United States. Yeah, they were all bad, but it could have been a lot worse. 

Most tropical storms and hurricanes have stayed out over water. Many of them moved north into colder water and petered out without causing any harm. 

If we run out of hurricane names this year, it will be third time that's happened. 

The first time the Atlantic Ocean basin ran out of names was the horrid season of 2005. That's the year that brought us the huge disasters Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, along with other destructive land falling hurricanes in the United States. 

In 2005, they resorted to using Greek names to deal with the last six tropical storms in the Atlantic basin.

Then came 2020 with a total of 30 named storms.  The National Hurricane Center ran through their name list early that season, resorting to the last of the names on the official list with Tropical Storm Wilfred on September 17, barely past the halfway point of the hurricane season. 

The rest of the 2020 season featured a confusing list of Greek named storms, including Delta, Zeta, Eta and Theta.

The whole point of naming tropical storms and hurricanes is to avoid public confusion. If two storms with distinct names happen at the same time, like this year's Hurricane Lee and Margo, it's easy to tell which one is which, and which hurricane you should worry about, and which one you can safely ignore. 

To solve the Greek letter problem if there are too many hurricanes and tropical storms, the World Meteorological has come up with a "B" list of sorts, names to use in the event we run out. So, if we get past Whitney in the Atlantic this year, we'll then go with Adria, Braylen, Caridad etc.   

It's a little odd that there have been so many tropical storms this year.  We're now in an El Nino pattern, which tends to squelch Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes due to strong upper level winds.

Those winds have materialized due to El Nino. But the Atlantic Ocean is at record warm levels, which is jet fuel for wannabe tropical storms. So, tropical storms are forming left and right. The strong upper level winds are keeping many of these storms, like the current Phillippe and Rina on the weak side, so I guess we can be happy for that.