Arlene started the Atlantic Hurricane Season in June as the first named tropical storm of 2005. Since then, storm after storm has formed and faded in the warm tropical waters of the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Now, we're watching Rita, the 9th Hurricane and the 17th named storm of this very busy hurricane season. But, after Rita, we have only four more names left on the official name list: Stan, Tammy, Vince & Wilma! It is very possible we will run out of storm names before the hurricane season ends November 30th. So, what's a storm tracker to do?
The World Meteorological Organization is in charge of picking the hurricane names each year and they DO have a back-up plan (although its never been needed in my lifetime). Once all the names are used up, any additional tropical storms will be named starting with the first letter of the Greek Alphabet. That means we may actually be tracking Hurricane Alpha, Beta, and even Gamma!
In case you haven't noticed: there are no hurricane names on the list that begin with the letters Q, U, X, Y, or Z.

- Mark Johnson