Unless the way we name hurricanes changes again you will never be hit by Hurricane Quinn, Hurricane Ursula, or Hurricane Zelda. You can take those names right off the list. Since there are so few names that start with these letters they don’t even make the list! So where did the tradition of naming hurricanes begin?
It believed that the process started in the 1800’s in the West Indies. They were named by the saint’s day on which the storm occurred.
The only problem with this is that hurricanes sometimes hit on the same day. An example of this would be Hurricane San Felipe hit Puerto on September 13th 1876. It was named for the saint of the day. Then in 1928 another hurricane hit Puerto Rico on September 13th. It was named Hurricane San Felipe the second. And it brought to light the problem of using saint’s day as a name.
The next progression was using the latitude and longitude positions where the hurricane formed. It was an accurate way to refer to the storm, but common mistakes were made. They found the numbers might get mixed and it was not easy to record and report. They deemed it was easier to use a name.
They used both male and female names for a period of time and then changed to only female names. This changed was attributed to a response to a popular novel “Storm” written by George R Stewart. In the novel the perfect storm was named after a loved one.
Other storms were named after the wives left at home during war.
In 1951 the United States went with a rather confusing plan of using the phonetic alphabet to name the storms. It was short lived. It 1953 they went to woman’s names in alphabetical order. In 1978 for the storms in Pacific male names were added to the list and the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico list followed suit the next year.
Here is how it works today.
There are six lists of names that are rotated through every six years. There is one list for the Pacific and another for the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. The World Meteorological Society is in charge of maintaining the lists.
Are there every new names added to the list? Yes, if a hurricane is particularly damaging or costly the name is retired. It seems like kind of an odd honor. The committee would then have to replace the name on that list with another name that phonetically and with the correct gender to replace the retired name. Here are some retired names you may recall:
Hurricane Andrew
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Hugo
Hurricane Gilbert
Hurricane Michelle
Perhaps you will get lucky some day and see your name on the ever famous hurricane list. What’s it a name anyway?
Sources:
www.fema.gov
www.nhc.noaa.gov
www.geology.com/news/2005/
