Tropical Storm Eta expected to be named Sunday morning

Hurricane season officially ends Nov. 30. The previous record-holding season of 2005 didn't finish until late December and early January with Zeta-2005.

As of Sunday morning, the first Tropical Storm Eta is projected to form southeast of Jamaica and southwest of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic).

It is expected to become a Category 1 hurricane on Monday, hit Nicaragua as a Cat 1 on Tuesday and continue at hurricane strength and continue packing sustained winds of 81 mph and gusts of 98 mph deep inland until Wednesday morning.

It should weaken to a tropical storm Wednesday afternoon just before it exits Nicaragua into Honduras where it will weaken further to a tropical depression before remnants pass into Guatemala.

Just to be on the safe side, we should send the Coast Guard to put out "No right turns" signs to discourage Eta from taking the Yucatan-to-Louisiana route favored by so many of the Class of 2020.

Unless the tropical depression dies Saturday night or early Sunday, it will be the 28th storm of the year. The season that gave us Katrina and Rita and 25 other named tropical storms and hurricanes is credited with 28 storms because one short-lived system was identified in a post-season analysis. That unnamed storm lasted less than a day and its remnants were eventually absorbed by Hurricane Vince, which formed on Oct. 9, 2005.

With 30 days of hurricane season left -- and the likelihood that it could go into "extra innings" like 2005 did -- odds are good there could be 30 named storms this year.