Last day of hurricane season?

Epsilon is finally dying. Fifty knots of wind shear have ripped away Epsilon's deep convection, and Epsilon is now just a swirl of low clouds. Today will be the final day of Epsilon's life, and likely the final day of the Hurricane Season of 2005. There is still a possibility that an extratropical low expected to form from Epsilon's remnants and drift slowly westward may be able to generate into Tropical Storm Zeta by the middle of next week, but I give this only a 30% chance of happening. Water temperatures are a cool 22-23C in the region. While both Delta and Epsilon did form from similar extratropical lows in the same region, the computer models are predicting that the new storm will have a more limited amount of time to develop (four days) before it gets recurved northeastward by a trough of low pressure. This probably is not enough time for it to make the transition to a tropical storm.

Jeff Masters