FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A new subtropical storm in the Atlantic made history Monday night.

Subtropical Storm Theta is the 29th named storm of the year, making the 2020 hurricane season the busiest on record.

Subtropical Storm Eta, which brought record rains to South Florida on Sunday and Monday, brought the season total to 28, a tie with 2005, the year of Hurricanes Wilma and Katrina.

Theta is spinning up several hundred miles southwest of the Azores, with top winds of 50 mph.

It’s named after the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, which forecasters turn to when they run out of regular-season names.

This system isn’t expected to hit the U.S. The latest forecast track shows it moving to the east through the Atlantic. While it’s not expected to become a hurricane, the system is already powerful, so once it develops, forecasters predict it should be a fairly robust tropical storm immediately, said Randy Atkins, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.

The 2005 season had a total of 31 tropical depressions, 27 of which became named storms with a 28th identified after a reanalysis of the season.

Even with 2020 go on record as having the most named storms in history, 2005 still holds the record for having longer and more powerful storms. That year, seven storms reached Category 3 or higher, compared to five so far in 2020. The storms in 2005 were also longer lasting than the ones seen so far in 2020.

“One way to sum this year up is while this year has been hyper active in terms of the number of storms we’ve had, we’ve been somewhat fortunate in that we haven’t had as many hurricanes that are powerful or as long lasting that we could have had,” Atkins said.

Forecasters are also keeping their eye on a tropical wave in the Caribbean that has a 50% chance of developing into a tropical depression later this week or over the weekend as it moves through the Lesser Antilles. Conditions in the area are favorable for development.

Even though it’s been a record year for storms, Florida has largely escaped the season’s fury. Tropical Storm Eta hit the Florida Keys late Sunday night, becoming the first storm of 2020 to make landfall in Florida. Eta brought powerful wind and flooding rains to much of South Florida.

 

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