How are Hurricanes Named

Nowadays, hurricanes are identified and remembered by their names. Who can forget the deadliest hurricane of 2005, which familiarized the name 'Katrina'? How do hurricanes get their names? Let us go through the details of naming of a hurricane and the authorities responsible for the task.

Till the latter half of the twentieth century, there was no universally accepted system for naming a hurricane. In West Indies, hurricanes were named after the saint's day on which the hurricane occurred. Some countries used latitude/longitude designations for hurricanes.

During the last decades of the nineteenth century, an Australian meteorologist named Clement Lindley Wragge started using names for addressing hurricanes. He used the names of women, political personalities & mythological figures. During World War II, the U.S. military began the practice of assigning female names to hurricanes in the Pacific & the Atlantic.

During the 1950s', names from the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet were used for Atlantic storms, but lack of a uniform system of naming hurricanes created many difficulties in communication, forecasts and warnings. The identification and tracking problems worsened in case of more than one hurricane originating at the same time.

To overcome these problems, the United States National Hurricane Center started the systematic naming of hurricanes (with female names) in 1953. At present, the names of hurricanes are maintained and updated by the World Meteorological Organization or WMO, which is the specialized agency of the United Nations for meteorology.

Earlier, only female names were used to address hurricanes, which led to some opposition from the fair sex. This led to the inclusion of masculine names too. WMO introduced the system of preparing the list of names for hurricanes, well in advance.

The list of names for hurricanes are prepared either by the national weather offices of the respective regions or by committees of the WMO. The names may reflect the region of origin of the hurricane. The naming process for different regions is as follows:

• The naming scheme for both the North Atlantic and Northeastern Pacific basins are somewhat same. The storms are named by the U.S. National Hurricane Center. There are six lists of hurricane names and one list is used every year. On completion of the sixth list, naming starts from the very first list again and the cycle continues, every six years.

• The odd-numbered lists start with masculine names and even-numbered lists start with feminine names. Each list has alternate names of females and males. In case of North Atlantic storms, names starting with five letters, 'Q', 'U', 'X', 'Y' and 'Z' are not used, but in Northeastern Pacific storms only 'Q' and 'U' are omitted.

• Each list contains 21 names for the North Atlantic storms and 24 names for the Northeastern Pacific. If a storm causes extensive damage, the name is retired with the consent of WMO, so as to facilitate historical references, settle insurance claims and above all to avoid public confusion.

• If a list is exhausted during a particular year, then the succeeding storms can be named as letters from the Greek alphabet. This was done for the first time during the 2005 Atlantic season. 

The hurricane names with Greek alphabets cannot be retired, but in case of extensive damage, it can be included in the list of retired names. Such names are provided with a footnote, suggesting their availability for future use.

• The Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, is responsible for the name lists in the Central North Pacific region. There are four lists, which consist of Hawaiian names. There is no system of a yearly list and the hurricane names are used in sequence.

• The WMO Typhoon Committee maintains the list in the Northwestern Pacific region. The fourteen member-nations of the committee submit two names each, to make five lists in all. The names are used in a sequential order. The numbering system is also to identify the tropical cyclones. There may be internal numbers too. 

The typhoon 'Songda' of 2004 was assigned the number 18 in Japan, whereas in China it was number 19. The international number of this typhoon was 'TY Songda (0418)', with '04' representing the year. The names of the typhoons causing extensive damage are retired and replaced by other names.

• For the Southwestern Indian Ocean, the list is made by the RA I Tropical Cyclone Committee. Two separate lists are maintained and the storms are named by two separate entities. If the storm is located west of 55 degrees east longitude, it is named by the Sub-regional Tropical Cyclone Advisory Center in Madagascar. 

And if it is between 55 and 90 degrees east longitude, then the Sub-regional Tropical Cyclone Advisory Center in Mauritius is responsible for the naming.

• The Australian Bureau of Meteorology is the organization assigned with the task of naming cyclones in the Western, Northern and Eastern Australian regions. Earlier, three lists were maintained by them, but later they decided to merge it into a single main list, which is to be used for naming storms in all the three Australian regions. 

This list, which is in alphabetical order, consists of alternate male and female names and are used in sequence.

Generally, the hurricanes once named are not renamed. In some cases, hurricanes may travel to another region, where they get a new name. Some hurricanes may weaken and then develop into a strong form, which is considered as a new hurricane, with a new name.

Sometimes, human errors lead to renaming of hurricanes. However, overall, the naming system has proved to be beneficial in better communication of information about hurricanes, which in turn has helped to avert many calamities.