As we are getting closer and closer to the possibility that we'll have named storms past the letter "W" (only "Tammy," "Vince," and "Wilma" are left), the idea of using Greek letters seems more and more ludicrous; what are they going to do if "Alpha" turns out to be a storm name that would need to be retired? I can't see that in the history books anyway: Hurricane Alpha. Loved the comment a couple days ago ("Beta decay, Delta change...") The world has not run out of names. Why not create a 7th list of "reserve" names that could be used every year, and would serve in this situation, with the same rules as the original six lists (retire a name if necessary and replace it with another name). It wouldn't even have to be a complete list; it would only have to have 5-10 names on it (can't wrap my mind around what a busier season than this one would be like!). They keep saying we may have 10-20 more years before we're out of this active period. Imagine comptemplating the use of Alpha and Beta every year or so, down the road until we're all ready to retire...ugh.

edit -- just looked at the sat images for Stan...it looks like the lopsided convection resulted in a pivot at landfall, and the path of the center has curved more south, and was going almost due south the past hour. If it goes SSW instead of SW, then the upper level remnants of the storm will be in the Pacific even sooner.