“Because 2020, we now have Zombie Tropical Storms. Welcome back to the land of the living, Tropical Storm #Paulette.” The National Weather Service tweeted this on September 22, after the storm that first appeared in early September as a Category 1 hurricane and quickly became a Category 2, lost speed and became a low-pressure system.

According to CNN, the storm stewed for five and a half days until this week, appearing Monday about 300 miles off the coast of the Azores islands. The storm seems to be aiming for Bermuda. Many scientists are saying that Paulette’s reason for emerging is climate change, saying these ‘zombie storms’ are more common lately. The reappearance of these storms is becoming more common, but was thought to be a rare occurrence. The last time a storm like this came about, it was Hurricane Ivan in 2004. 

The reason for Paulette coming back from the dead is that there was an “extreme amount of heating of the Gulf (of Mexico) particularly in some of the ocean areas off of the Caribbean,” says Donald Wuebbles, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The storms are beginning to die out, and then catching the warm ocean water in the Caribbean where they regain their strength, leaving the affected unprepared. Whether these storms are happening due to climate change or just unexpected circumstances, they are suitable for 2020.