The 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season continues to surprise and amaze. In conjunction with a persistent upper-level low in the eastern Atlantic, a surface low developed yesterday and quickly became organized this morning and early afternoon, resulting in the development of the season's 27th named storm of the season, Zeta. Only one other storm that I can recall -- "Alice2" of 1954 -- formed this late in the year, lasting into January 1955; of course, there are likely others in or out of the database as well. Zeta is also the season's 6th Greek named storm and, in a punny twist of fate, is often used by meteorologists as the symbol to represent vorticity -- or, as Jim Cantore puts it, spin -- a feature which tropical cyclones certainly have a lot of.

Zeta formed in a somewhat peculiar manner, with elements of Vince, Delta, and Epsilon (location), elements of some of this season's western Atlantic storms (enhancement by an upper-level low), and perhaps even elements of pure tropical development (convection fires within a mid-level feature, spins up a low-level circulation, convection dies out, the circulation organizes, and we get a tropical disturbance out of it). We'll watch it as we head into the new year -- needless to say, Zeta will almost assuredly be the last named storm of the 2005 season. It may just make it to 2006 as it slowly moves toward the west-northwest over the next couple of days.

More coming soon.

Event-specific links
(click image for full-size -- now all current!)

Skeetobite Track Map of Zeta
SSD GOES Floater on Zeta
S. Fla. WMD Model Plot

Thanks to Random Chaos for the following links:
NASA GHCC - 6 Frame IR Animation
NASA GHCC - 12 Frame IR Animation
PSU IR Loop