What's in a Name?

Everyone on the East coast of the United States has been watching with apprehension as Hurricane Matthew moves steadily toward the eastern seaboard. I thought, to stay on the hurricane topic, that I would share a post on how hurricanes get their name. I did not know how hurricanes were named before I did some searching, and the results were very interesting to me. The following article is from the Weather Channel website; you can find the original post here:https://weather.com/safety/hurricane/news/hurricanes-named-20120330

What's in a name? Naming of tropical storms and hurricanes has been going on for
centuries. Hurricanes that swept through the Caribbean often were named for the saint's day on which they occurred. Once a tropical disturbance intensifies to tropical storm strength, with wind speeds above 39 mph, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) gives the tropical cyclone a name. Prior to 1950, military weather forecasters assigned a number, not a name, to tropical storms. For example, the fifth tropical cyclone of the 1932 hurricane season was called Hurricane Number 5. For a short time, the military phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie, etc.) was used to assign names. Beginning in 1953, tropical storms were assigned female names. Names were listed in alphabetical order, with the first tropical storm of the year given a name beginning with "A." In 1978, both men's and women's names were included in the eastern North Pacific storm lists. In 1979, the Atlantic Basin list of names was expanded to include both male and female names. Member nations of The World Meteorological Organization have since revised the list to include names common to English-, Spanish-, and French-speaking peoples. The order of men's and women's names alternates every year. For example, in 1995 the list began with Allison. In 1996, it began with Arthur. There are six lists of tropical cyclone names, 21 names for Atlantic storms and 24 names for eastern North Pacific storms. The lists are used on a rotating basis. For instance, the 1997 set was used again in 2003. If a tropical storm forms in the Atlantic and crosses over to the Pacific, it is given a new name. In the event that more than 21 named tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin in a season, additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and so on. Occasionally, a name is retired from the list when an associated hurricane has caused many deaths or a tremendous amount of damage. Some retired names include Andrew, Bob, Camille, David, Dennis, Elena, Fran, Frederic, Katrina, Hugo, Ivan, Opal, Rita, Stan, and Wilma.

I just thought it would be interesting to find out some interesting facts about these big storms that are a semi-constant threat to the eastern portion of the country. I hope you liked this article, and feel free to post any comments you have in the comment section below, or on Facebook. Also, to everyone threatened by the storm, and storm aftermath, stay safe!