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Who decides the names of hurricanes and how are they given?

Credit: NOAA/CIRA

In 2024 they made a lot of noise about them hurricanes Beryl, Helene And Milton. Many remember the hurricane Katrina, which devastated the area near New Orleans in the United States in 2005. The names come from predetermined lists which alternate male and female names and serve mainly to facilitate communication between meteorological organizations but also between the media and the public and above all between institutions and citizensin order to help the population prepare for possible emergencies.

Lists of pre-established names for hurricanes

The names of hurricanes (or more generally tropical cyclones, also called typhoons or cyclones depending on the area of ​​the world in which they occur) are not established randomly at the time, but rather come from predetermined listsdifferent depending on the area of ​​the globe where the specific natural event occurs.

First of all it must be said that the custom of name hurricanes with personal names derives from apractical need: Hurricanes can technically be identified by their coordinates, but this makes the communication and management of these events is particularly difficult for meteorologists, technicians and the media, especially when multiple storms occur at the same time in the same area.

hurricane helene coast florida
Hurricane Helene, September 2024. Credit: NOAA

For this reason, for convenience, from the mid-20th century meteorologists active in the North Atlantic began to use proper names as a means of identifying hurricanes. In the 1953 The National Hurricane Center (NHC) – section of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States dedicated to hurricane forecasting – established annual name lists to be associated with hurricanes. Initially, it was a predetermined alphabetical list for each year, of names only feminine: the name on the list, which is associated with the first hurricane of the year, had a female first name that began with A, for example Anna, the second with B, like Betty, and so on until the last letter of the alphabet , the W.

The initial use of only female names It perhaps dates back to an ancient maritime tradition – obviously without any comparison with reality – according to which women on board a ship would bring bad luck. This is why many people still think that hurricanes only have female names, but this is no longer the case. From the 1979 onwards were also introduced names masculine alternate to those feminine for Atlantic cyclones (for those of the Pacific the introduction dates back to 1978), always maintaining the alphabetical order of the initials.

Nowadays, the names are established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) which develops precise lists of names, one for each part of the globe. This means that hurricanes that occur in the North Atlantic Ocean follow a different list than those in, for example, the Central Pacific Ocean, which in turn are different from those in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

Names used in the North Atlantic Ocean

In the’North Atlantic Ocean they exist six annual lists of names who come cyclically reused. This means, for example, that the names used in 2024 will be reused in 2030 unless specific situations arise. In fact the names of hurricanes that they had consequences particularly destructive oh mortals, they come replaced with other names having the same initial letter, as their reuse is considered inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity. For example, the name Katrina was no longer used after 2005 due to its disastrous consequences, and in its place we now find the name Katia. In this list you can find the list of all the names of hurricanes that, over the years, have been excluded for the reasons mentioned above.

This means that for each list annual are established 21 namesthat is, all the letters of the alphabet excluding Q, U, X, Y and Z due to the difficulty of finding simple names with such letters. If exceptionally more than 21 hurricanes occur in this area in a single year, and therefore the names available “run out”, a so-called “supplementary list”that is, a further predetermined annual list structured like the other six, left available for cases like the one described.

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List of hurricane names established for the North Atlantic Ocean. Credit: NHC

But the question remains: according to what criteria are these names established?

The criteria used by the WMO to establish hurricane names

The process of determining hurricane names is conducted by specific WMO regional bodies who select names based on their familiarity with the languages ​​spoken in each specific region, with the aim of making the understanding of these names as clear as possible depending on the area of ​​the world we are in.

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Hurricane Milton, October 2024. Credit: NOAA

The procedures for assigning names may vary from area to area, for example the alphabetical order and alternation of male and female names implemented for hurricanes in the North Atlantic area is not used in all other regions.

However, there are some general rules which are followed in the attribution:

  • the names do not have to come from specific individuals (i.e they are not “dedicated”)
  • they must be sufficiently short that can be used with ease
  • they must be names easy to pronounce (for each list, there is also a specific list of pronunciations)
  • the names they must be unique: the same names cannot be used in different areas of the globe

The division into zones

As we have already said, the globe is divided into different areas of interest to hurricanes, each with its own, or specific, predetermined list of names.

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Sample draft of the division into zones. Credit: NOAA

The zones indicated by the WMO are 10:

  • Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and North Atlantic
  • Northeast Pacific
  • North Central Pacific
  • Western North Pacific and South China Sea
  • Australian Tropical Cyclone Warning Center area of ​​responsibility
  • Nadi Regional Specialized Meteorological Center area of ​​responsibility
  • Port Moresby Tropical Cyclone Warning Center area of ​​responsibility
  • Area of ​​responsibility of the Jakarta Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre
  • Northern Indian Ocean – Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal
  • Southwestern Indian Ocean

At this link you can find the different lists of names.