The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has identified a new tropical cyclone in the central Atlantic Ocean: Tropical Depression #20. With time, the NHC expects this system to grow into a tropical storm and eventually a hurricane over the next 5 days. When Tropical Depression #20 strengthens into a tropical storm, it will be given the name Teddy.
If it forms as forecast, Teddy will shatter the records for the earliest “T” storm ever to form in the Atlantic Basin. After re-analyzing seasonal data for the 2005 hurricane season, the National Hurricane Center declared a system in the Atlantic to be a tropical storm after the fact. Because it happened after the season, it has no name. That unnamed storm formed on October 4 and would have been the earliest “T” storm on record. With Teddy forming in the coming days, it’ll beat that old record by more than 2 weeks.