Name That Hurricane!

Did you ever wonder where hurricanes get their names? No, meteorologists do not just pick a name off the top of their heads; the names of tropical storms and hurricanes are actually decided years in advance.

There are six lists of names, so the names repeat themselves every six years, unless a storm is so deadly or costly that the name becomes retired. The names alternate between male and female as well. Additionally, there are different lists of names for different ocean basins, so that we do not get our names confused with the storms in the Pacific Ocean, or the Indian Ocean.

Now that all of the hurricane outlooks have been issued for season, let’s take a look at the 2015 list of hurricane names in the Atlantic Ocean.

Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Fred, Grace, Henri, Ida, Joagquin, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor, and Wanda

As you can see, not all of the letters of the alphabet are used. Some letters, such as X, are limited in the amount of options for names.  So, there are only 21 letters used out of the 26 in the alphabet. Additionally, if all of these names are used in one season, the surplus storms will take names from the Greek alphabet.

To see more information about hurricane names, click here: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml.

-Emily Lewis