Chicago ? Hurricane forecasters welcomed the approach of December and the official end of the 2005 hurricane season – the worst ever recorded in the Atlantic – then turned immediately to preparations for next year and a dire warning to the public Tuesday:

So far, 2006 in the Atlantic is shaping up to be every bit as bad.

At a news conference in Miami and Washington, D.C., officials at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration described the hyperactive 2005 hurricane season, which closes today, as essentially two full seasons crammed into one.

NOAA officials dismissed possible connections to global warming from greenhouse gas emissions as a cause for 2005’s stormy weather. Instead, they blamed the year’s severity on a broad cycle in which equatorial seas warm and cool every 25 to 30 years, as they have since at least 1870.

The current cycle of warming Atlantic water and stormier weather began in 1995, said Gerry Bell, NOAA’s lead hurricane forecaster. It was made worse this year because trade winds that tear hurricanes apart were absent, he said.

“I would like to be able to tell you that next year will be calmer, but I can’t,” said NOAA administrator and retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr.

A For Sale By Owner sign stands in front of a flooded home cluttered with debris Tuesday in Chalmette, La. As the deadly six-month hurricane season closes, tens of thousands of Americans are still dealing with the devastation from Hurricanes Wilma, Rita and Katrina, the nation's worst natural disaster in modern times.

26th named storm forms

Fort Lauderdale, Fla. – So much for the end of hurricane season.

Tropical Storm Epsilon popped up in the central Atlantic on Tuesday and was expected to reach near hurricane strength today – the official end of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season.

Practically speaking, Epsilon likely will extend the season for a few more days; it was expected to make a hairpin turn northeast and fizzle before threatening any land.

That it even formed makes it something of a scientific marvel, considering it was the fifth storm to be named under the Greek alphabet – during what has become by far the most active hurricane season on record.

Epsilon was the 26th named storm since the season began on June 1, shattering the previous record of 21 named storms set in 1933.