美国有线新闻 CNN 气象学家表示今年将不再用希腊字母命名风暴（在线收听）

This week we're starting with a forecast for a type of season that doesn't begin until June 1st.

本周，我们首先对6月1日才会开始的一种季节进行预测。

Why are we looking so far ahead?

为什么我们要报道如此久远之后的事情？

Because the season we're discussing is the 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season

因为我们要讨论的季节是2021年大西洋飓风季，

and there may be increased interest in this year's forecast because last year's season was a doozy.

今年的预测可能会引起更多的关注，因为去年的飓风季相当特别。

The Atlantic Hurricane Season covers main storms in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

大西洋飓风季包括大西洋、加勒比海和墨西哥湾形成的主要风暴。

Scientists have been keeping records of these storms in these regions since 1851.

自1851年以来，科学家一直在记录这些地区的风暴。

Storms can form outside of the season and several did last year and a major record that was broken last year was the total number of systems.

风暴可以在非飓风季形成，去年有过几次这种情况，去年的风暴系统总数打破了记录。

There were 30 named Atlantic storms in 2020. The previous record had been set in 2005 when there were 27 named storms.

2020年出现了30个有命名的大西洋风暴。此前的记录在2005年创下，当时有27个命名风暴。

What's interesting as far as the names themselves go is that they're only 21 of them pre-selected for each season.

值得注意的是，就名字本身而言，每个飓风季只预选出21个名字。

So in 2005 and 2020, scientists used the letters of the Greek alphabet.

因此在2005年和2020年，科学家用希腊字母表中的字母来命名风暴。

Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, for the storms that came after the first 21 names.

21后名字用完后，之后出现的风暴用阿尔法、贝塔，伽马，德尔塔来表示。

They're not going to do that again.

但他们不会再这样做。

Meteorologists announced this year that if the 21 original names get used up,

气象学家今年宣布，如果21个预选名字用光，

a supplemental list with more names will be used instead of the Greek letters.

他们将使用补充名单上的名字命名风暴，而不用希腊字母。

Forecasting the number of hurricanes is kind of like forecasting the weather. It's not an exact science.

预测飓风的数量有点像预测天气。这不是一门精确的科学。

Last April for instance, Colorado State University initially predicted there would be 16 named storms.

例如，去年四月，科罗拉多州立大学最初预测去年会出现16个命名风暴。

There turned out to be almost double that and there were seasons when the group initially predicted more storms than there turned out being.

但结果几乎是这个数字的两倍，而且在某些飓风季，研究小组最初预测的风暴数量比实际发生的要多。

But unlike the U.S. government which predicts a range in the number of hurricanes, Colorado State predicts a specific number.

但与美国政府预测飓风的数量范围不同，科罗拉多州预测的是一个具体的数字。