The Naming of Pacific Hurricanes

U.S. Department of Commerce/NOAA/National Weather Service

History of Hurricane Names

For several hundred years, many hurricanes in the West Indies were named after the particular saint’s 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 women’s names to tropical storms before the end of the 19th century. An early example of the use of a woman’s 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 Nation’s weather services began using female names for storms. The practice of naming hurricanes solely after women came to an end in 1978 when men’s and women’s 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.

Eastern North Pacific Names

Given names are also used to identify typhoons and hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean. A set of six alphabetical lists is used in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. As in the Atlantic, the sets are used again when the six-year lists are completed. The 2006 list will be used again in 2012. In addition, names are retired, after land-falling storms having major economic impact. The Six Year List of Names for Eastern Pacific Storms

Central Pacific Tropical Cyclone Names

Use Column 1 list of names until exhausted then use Column 2, etc. All letters in the Hawaiian language are pronounced, including double
or triple vowels.