Wilma

The latest storm of the century, hurricane Wilma, has reached category 5 status off the Yucatan, and in fact is the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, measured by barometric pressure.

She is expected to make landfall in South Florida over the weekend as a category 3 or 4. The Keys are already being evacuated.

With Wilma, we are officially out of names for tropical storms in the Atlantic for 2005. Now we start on greek letters, for the first time ever, assuming there's annother one, which is a pretty safe bet since there are still six weeks left in hurricane season.

The increase in the number of storms in recent years is likely part of a natural cycles. However, it strains credulity to believe that global warming is not to blame for the incredible increase in their intensity. From 1928 to 2002 there were 23 category 5 hurricanes formed in the Atlantic basin, an average of about three per decade. We've now had three this year, and five in the past three years.