There is much history in naming of tropical storms.  Until late in the 1940s, hurricanes were not officially named as hurricane forecasting was still in its infancy.  Only the most severe of hurricanes were given names, and they were often named for the place they did the most damage.  United States meteorologists working in the Pacific Ocean began naming tropical cyclones during World War II, when they often had to track multiple storms.  They gave each storm a name in order to distinguish the cyclones from each other more quickly than referring to each storm by its position. 

The first United States named hurricane was George, which hit in 1947.  The next hurricane given a name was Hurricane Bess in 1949.  Various naming conventions were used until the use of women’s names was adopted in 1953.  Different names used that year included Carol, Barbara, Edna, Dolly, Gilda, Hazel, Irene, and Jill, among many others.  Between the years of 1953 and 1979, only women’s names were used to name tropical storms.  Since 1979, both men’s and women’s names are alternated. 

Experience shows that the use of short and distinctive names is quicker and is much less subject to error than the older and more cumbersome methods involving latitude and longitude identification.  These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea.  The use of easily remembered names helps to greatly reduce confusion when two or more tropical storms occur at the same time.  For several hundred years, many hurricanes in the West Indies were named after the particular saint’s day on which the hurricane occurred.  The Tropical Prediction Center near Miami, Florida keeps a constant watch on oceanic storm breeding grounds.  Once a system with a counterclockwise circulation and wind speeds of 39 miles per hour or greater is identified, the Center gives the storm a name from the list for the current year.  The letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z are not included because of the scarcity of names beginning with those letters.  Names associated with storms that have caused significant damage and/or death, are typically retired from the list. 

A typical hurricane starts out as a cluster of ordinary thunderstorms.  Powered by heat from warm tropical waters and guided by Coriolis forces, the storms swirl together, joining forces to create a tropical depression.  They then turn into a tropical storm, followed by a full-fledged hurricane.  Wind shears in the South Atlantic usually stop this process at the stage of tropical depression.  The names all start with a letter of the alphabet and go in alphabetical order with female and male names together.  If a female name is first, then a male name comes next, followed by a female and then a male.  This pattern continues until there are enough names.  Tropical storms and hurricanes are named in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.  In the case of a storm forming in the Atlantic, Caribbean, or Gulf of Mexico and then crossing over to the Pacific Ocean, the storm then loses its original name and is re-named with a new name from the list for the Pacific Ocean.  The list of names rotates through every six years, which means the names that were used in the year 2006 were originally used in the year 2000 storm season.

One question asked often is, who chooses the names?  The countries that are affected by hurricanes are those who choose the names.  The World Meteorological Organization Region 4 Committee approves those names.  That committee includes representatives of the affected countries. 

 

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