PORTLAND, Oregon — The United States Gulf Coast could be in the path of another hurricane later this week.
While Tropical Storm Gamma sputters along the Mexican Coast, a new tropical depression has just formed south of Jamaica. It's forecast to become a named tropical storm soon, the name would be "Delta," and the official forecast track from the National Hurricane Center puts the new storm in the northern Gulf of Mexico late this week as a category two hurricane.
The 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season has been very busy so far and is on pace to break the 2005 record for most named storms in a season -which is 27.
"The use of the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, etc) has only happened once before, in 2005, when six names from the Greek alphabet were used. This was a record-breaking year with devastating hurricanes including Katrina, Rita and Wilma, whose names were all retired," the World Meteorological Organization said.
Storms of notable strength have their names retired, though we're in unchartered water as a possibly strong Greek alphabet named storm develops. The forecast track and intensity are likely to shift a little bit in the coming days. Hurricane season runs through the end of November so, with 8 weeks to go, it's possible that the 2005 record for most named storms is tied or broken this year.
Some info about the 2005 season here.