The Naming of Atlantic Hurricanes
U.S. Department of Commerce
NOAA's National Weather Service
History of Hurricane Names
For several hundred years, many hurricanes in the West Indies were named
after the particular saints day on which the hurricane occurred.
Ivan R. Tannehill describes in his book Hurricanes the major
tropical storms of recorded history and mentions many hurricanes named
after saints. 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.
Tannehill also tells of Clement Wragge, an Australian meteorologist,
who began giving womens names to tropical storms before the end
of the 19th century. An early example of the use of a womans name
for a storm was in the novel Storm by George R. Stewart, published
by Random House in 1941, and since filmed by Walt Disney. During World
War II, this practice became widespread in weather map discussions among
forecasters, especially Air Force and Navy meteorologists who plotted
the movements of storms over the wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean.
In 1953, the United States abandoned as confusing a two-year old plan
to name storms by a phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie) when a new,
international phonetic alphabet was introduced. That year, this Nations
weather services began using female names for storms. The practice of
naming hurricanes
solely after women came to an end in 1978 when mens and womens
names were included in the Eastern North Pacific storm lists. In 1979,
male and female names were included in lists for the Atlantic and Gulf
of Mexico.
Why Hurricanes Are Named
Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive given names in written
as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error
than the older more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods.
These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm
information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, airports, coastal
bases, and ships at sea.
The use of easily remembered names greatly reduces
confusion when two or more tropical storms occur at the same time. For
example, one hurricane can be moving slowly westward in the Gulf of Mexico,
while at exactly the same time another hurricane can be moving rapidly northward
along the Atlantic coast. In the past, confusion and false rumors have arisen
when storm advisories broadcast from one radio station were mistaken for
warnings concerning an entirely different storm located hundreds of miles
away.
Present Procedure in the North Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico
The Tropical Prediction Center near Miami, FL, keeps a constant watch on
oceanic storm-breeding areas for tropical disturbances that may herald the
formation of a hurricane. If a disturbance intensifies into a tropical storm with
rotary circulation and wind speeds above 38 miles per hourthe Center
will give the storm a name from one of the six lists below. The Center uses
a new set of names each year beginning with the first name in the set. After
the sets have all been used, they are reused. For example, TPC is reusing
the 2006 set in 2012. The letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z are not included
because of the scarcity of names beginning with those letters. TPC retires
a name after a major land-falling storm with major economic impact.
The name lists have an international flavor
because hurricanes affect other nations and are tracked by the public
and weather services of many countries. Names for these lists are selected
from library sources and agreed upon at international meetings of the World
Meteorological Organization.
The Six-Year List of Names for Atlantic Storms
|
2007
Andrea
Barry
Chantal
Dean
Erin
Felix
Gabrielle
Humberto
Ingrid
Jerry
Karen
Lorenzo
Melissa
Noel
Olga
Pablo
Rebekah
Sebastien
Tanya
Van
Wendy |
2008
Arthur
Bertha
Cristobal
Dolly
Edouard
Fay
Gustav
Hanna
Ike
Josephine
Kyle
Laura
Marco
Nana
Omar
Paloma
Rene
Sally
Teddy
Vicky
Wilfred |
2009
Ana
Bill
Claudette
Danny
Erika
Fred
Grace
Henri
Ida
Joaquin
Kate
Larry
Mindy
Nicholas
Odette
Peter
Rose
Sam
Teresa
Victor
Wanda |
2010
Alex
Bonnie
Colin
Danielle
Earl
Fiona
Gaston
Hermine
Igor
Julia
Karl
Lisa
Matthew
Nicole
Otto
Paula
Richard
Shary
Tomas
Virginie
Walter |
2011
Arlene
Bret
Cindy
Don
Emily
Franklin
Gert
Harvey
Irene
Jose
Katia
Lee
Maria
Nate
Ophelia
Philippe
Rina
Sean
Tammy
Vince
Whitney |
2012
Alberto
Beryl
Chris
Debby
Ernesto
Florence
Gordon
Helene
Isaac
Joyce
Kirk
Leslie
Michael
Nadine
Oscar
Patty
Rafael
Sandy
Tony
Valerie
William |
|