ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was one for the record books with 30 named storms, 14 hurricanes and seven major hurricanes. This year has been a far cry from that with only five named storms, two hurricanes and zero major hurricanes so far.
On Sept. 14, 2020, the Atlantic was filled with tropical systems. Listen to this: On this day in 2020, there were five active named storms and two active hurricanes. That is the same amount of activity that we have seen for the entire season so far!
Tropical Depression Rene, Tropical Storm Teddy, Tropical Storm Vicky, Hurricane Paulette and Hurricane Sally were all active storms on this day in 2020. Hurricane Sally would end up making landfall a few days later as a Category 2 hurricane near Gulf Shores, Alabama.
Along with those five active named storms were two areas of potential development that would eventually turn into Tropical Storm Wilfred and Tropical Storm Beta.
That means that two years ago, we already had 20 named storms compared to only five this year. And just a few days later, a couple more named storms meant that the hurricane names for 2020 had all been used, meaning that the Greek alphabet storm names were used for the rest of the season.
This season couldn't be any more different with tropical activity struggling to develop for the first three and a half months. And right now, instead of having several active storms as we saw two years ago, we only have Tropical Depression Seven that we are watching.
Tropical Depression Seven developed Wednesday morning with some slow strengthening possible. The storm is forecasted to become Tropical Storm Fiona as it moves west. Tropical Depression Seven is expected to move toward the Leeward Islands and eventually towards Puerto Rico by the weekend.
Gusty winds and heavy rainfall will be likely as this system passes by parts of the Caribbean.