Tropical Storm Eta forms, becoming record 28th named storm this year

Tropical Storm Eta formed Saturday night in the Caribbean Sea and is expected to reach hurricane strength by the time it strikes the Central American coast.

The storm, producing winds of 40 mph, threatens to hit the region of Nicaragua and Honduras next week with top winds of 90 mph, according to the 11 p.m. update from the National Hurricane Center. Hurricane watches went up for parts of the Central American coast.

Eta is the 28th named storm of the season, a record-breaking number that has forced forecasters to resort for the first time to the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet to give it a name. Although 2005 produced an equal number of storms, one of these had been discovered in post-season analysis and so had not been given a name. Additionally, 2005′s Tropical Storm Zeta formed on Dec. 26, almost four weeks after that hurricane season’s conclusion.

Eta is expected to reach hurricane strength by Monday.

“There is a risk of storm surge, hurricane-force winds, and heavy rainfall for portions of Nicaragua and Honduras,” the hurricane center said. “…Through Thursday afternoon, heavy rainfall from the system will likely lead to flash flooding and river flooding across portions of Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Central America, which could result in landslides in areas of higher terrain.”

The storm was moving westward at about 15 mph toward the western Caribbean Sea. Jamaica, Honduras, and Nicaragua are in its path. It’s expected to produce heavy rainfall across portions of Jamaica and southern Hispaniola through the weekend, forecasters said.

“This is exactly what we look for this time of year on the tail end of these colds fronts, they get down into the Gulf or the southwest Atlantic, the Bahamas and Cuba and places like that,” said Bob Smerbeck, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.

The 2020 hurricane season snapped a tie with 2005 for the most named storms in a year. This year also ties 2005 for the most number of total storms in a season. A reanalysis of the 2005 season identified a previously unknown system that briefly became strong enough to earn a name — but it was too late to give it one.

There’s still one month left in the hurricane season. The next name that would be used would be Theta.

Meanwhile, the remnants of post-tropical cyclone Zeta zipped well off the northeast U.S. coast after pummeling storm-battered Louisiana and killing at least six people across the south.

Power outages occurred across six states from Louisiana to the south Atlantic seaboard, leaving at least 2.5 million in the dark, according to the Associated Press.

In Louisiana, a man was electrocuted by a downed power line in New Orleans, according to a Louisiana coroner.

Four people died in Alabama and Georgia when trees fell on homes, which included two people who were left pinned to their bed, the AP reported.

And in Biloxi, Miss., Leslie Richardson, 58, drowned when he was trapped in rising seawater after taking video of the raging storm. Richardson and another man escaped a floating car and desperately clung to a tree before his strength “just gave out,” Harrison County coroner Brian Switzer said.

Zeta was the record-breaking 11th named storm to make a U.S. landfall during the 2020 hurricane season, nearly all of them along the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast.

The 2020 hurricane season was predicted to be above normal by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in May, but updated in August to extremely active.

Colorado State’s Tropical Meteorology Project team issued its first forecast for the 2020 hurricane season on April 2, when it forecast 16 named storms, eight hurricanes and four major hurricanes, an above-average season.

An average season, measured by standards established between 1981 and 2010, has 12 named storms, six hurricanes and three major hurricanes, defined as a Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

While Florida south of the Panhandle escaped virtually unscathed in 2020, Louisiana was brutalized by five named storms — Hurricanes Laura, Delta, and Zeta, and Tropical Storms Cristobal and Marco.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.