No Zeta: Hurricane Season is over

The strong extratropical low pressure system southwest of the Azores Islands is showing no signs of tropical development today. The amount of deep convection near the low's center has decreased since yesterday, and with wind shear values of 20 knots overhead and steadily increasing, this storm has no chance to develop into Tropical Storm Zeta. The low will get absorbed into an approaching cold front on Wednesday and rapidly dissipate.

Elsewhere in the tropical Atlantic, wind shear levels are very high and expected to remain high for at least the next week, making tropical storm formation very unlikely. Long range models show a weak extratropical low developing near the Canary Islands late in the week, but wind shear is expected to be too strong to allow this low to develop into a tropical storm. I can now confidently predict that the end of the Hurricane Season of 2005 has arrived! Look for my next update on the tropics at the beginning of next year's hurricane season, on June 1. My blog until then will primarily focus on climate change, reviewing the Hurricane Season of 2005, and other topics of interest.


Figure 1. Map of all coastal areas subjected to hurricanes warnings (red) and tropical storm warnings (yellow) during the Hurricane Season of 2005.

Jeff Masters