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Hurricane Delta explodes from Category 2 to Category 4 storm in two hours

It's now in the record books as the strongest storm ever named for a Greek letter.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
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Gael Cooper
2 min read
delta-hurricane-cancun-10-6-20

Hurricane Delta approaches the Yucatan peninsula on Tuesday.

 NOAA

This year just keeps throwing new dangers at humanity. On Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center reported that Hurricane Delta "has rapidly strengthened into a dangerous Category 4 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph."  If that seems like a very quick progression, you're right.

Meteorologist Dennis Feltgen of the National Hurricane Center confirmed in an email that Delta moved from a Category 2 storm to a Category 4 storm in just two hours, 20 minutes, based on the time the various advisories were issued. 

If you want another grim statistic, Feltgern confirms that over 24 hours, Delta increased from 45 mph to 130 mph.

But there's some misinformation out there, especially on social media. Feltgen notes that it's incorrect that the storm took only 20 minutes to increase from 115 mph to 130 mph. It's all about the advisories, which are based on aircraft flying through different parts of the storm and checking its statistics.

"(The 20 minute window) was the time between the issuance of the 11 a.m. EDT public advisory (115 mph), and the Tropical Cyclone Update at 11:20 a.m. EDT (130 mph)," he said. "That is not the length of time of the increase in the wind as measured by the aircraft. The aircraft was flying different quadrants of the hurricane throughout the mid- to late morning."

Feltgen said that while there's no indication at this time that the speed at which Delta moved from Category 2 to Category 4 set a record.

Still, the storm has already claimed a place in the history books. It's now the strongest storm ever named for a Greek letter. Storms are named after Greek letters only once the rotating list of 21 storm names assigned to each Atlantic hurricane season has been used up.

Erin Wenckstern, meteorologist with Canada's Weather Network, noted that it took Delta only 30 hours to move from tropical depression status to Category 4. She tweeted that the storm will hit Mexico, near the resort city of Cancun, before making landfall in Louisiana.

And CBS News reported that hurricane conditions are expected Tuesday night along Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, where the storm will likely make landfall early Wednesday. (CBS News is owned by CNET parent ViacomCBS.)

The National Hurricane Center is warning those living along the northern Gulf Coast to prepare now for the storm's arrival.

While the intensification of the storm may not be a record, it's understandably unnerving, especially to those in its path.

"There are way too damn many records being broken and set this year," wrote one Twitter user.

Delta may not be the last Greek letter-named storm this year. Hurricane season runs through Nov. 30.