The naming of hurricanes is a curious matter

All hurricanes are given names. I became interested in how and why when I saw that the current natural disaster about to hit the USA was named after my mother.

Seemingly it wasn’t always the case. For hundreds of years, hurricanes in the West Indies were named after the particular saint's day on which the hurricane occurred, for example, there was "Hurricane Santa Ana" which struck Puerto Rico with exceptional violence on July 26, 1825, and "San Felipe" (the first) and "San Felipe" (the second) which hit Puerto Rico on September 13 in both 1876 and 1928.  But, in the Atlantic area a cumbersome latitude-longitude identification method was used, which was supposedly subject to error.

An Australian meteorologist, Clement Wragge, began giving names to tropical storms before the end of the 19th century.  Allegedly he chose names of people he didn't like, especially politicians, but used women's names for the most violent storms!

In  the early 50s the U.S. National Weather Service drew up a plan to name storms using the phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie …), but when a new, international phonetic alphabet was introduced they gave up and began using female names for storms as well. A sort of "If you can't beat them join them" attitude.

In 1978 political correctness raised it's head and men's names were included in the Eastern North Pacific storm lists for the first time, not to be left out, in 1979, the lists for the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico followed suit. Nowadays the storms are named alternately male and female - you can't get much more PC than that.

So, who actually decides what names are used each year? The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a United Nations agency based in Geneva, uses six lists in rotation. Seemingly one name for each letter of the alphabet is selected, except for Q, U and Z, because not enough names start with those letters. For Atlantic Ocean hurricanes, the names may be French, Spanish or English, since these are the major languages bordering the Atlantic Ocean where the storms occur.

The only time a new name is added is if a name is ‘retired’. If a hurricane proves very deadly or costly then the name can be retired and a new name chosen. Retiring a name actually means that it cannot be re-used for at least 10 years. This is in order to help historic references, legal actions, insurance claims, etc. and avoid public confusion with another storm of the same name.

The following names are ‘retired’:-

Agnes Alicia Allen Allison Andrew Anita Audrey Betsy Beulah Bob Camille Carla Carmen Carol Celia Cesar Cleo Connie David Diana Diane Donna Dora Edna Elena Eloise Fifi Flora Fran Frederic Floyd Gilbert Gloria Gracie Georges Hattie Hazel Hilda Hortense Hugo Inez Ione Iris Jane Joan Juan Keith Klaus Luis Lenny Marilyn Michelle Mitch Opal Roxanne.

I guess Katrina and Rita will follow soon.

According to the news, this year, forecasters could actually run out of names for tropical storms and hurricanes before the season ends (November 30th). If this happens ‘additional’  storms will take names from the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta … . Nice to know they've got a back up plan.

The current lists can be found here:-

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml