Katrina, Sandy, Andrew — some names are inextricably linked with among the most devastating hurricanes in current U.S. historical past. However how do hurricanes and different tropical storms get their names?
First, let’s begin with how such storms are outlined. Hurricanes are tropical cyclones with sustained winds of greater than 74 mph (119 km/h) that develop east of the worldwide date line. They’re known as typhoons west of the worldwide date line, and so they’re known as cyclones within the Indian Ocean and Australia. All are coordinated and named by a single physique, the World Meteorological Group (WMO), which has a separate name list for typhoons.
To get a reputation, a storm should maintain winds of a minimum of 39 mph (63 km/h) over a one-minute interval. If it fails to take action, it receives a quantity as a substitute of a reputation and known as a tropical melancholy.
The WMO additionally maintains a list of 21 storm names that it rotates each six years. The Atlantic storms checklist for 2025, as an illustration, specifies that Andrea and Barry are subsequent in line, the identical names of storms that final handed via the Atlantic in 2019. Within the subsequent hurricane season, the WMO will flip the genders of the names, alternating between them evenly, stated Lourdes Avilés, affiliate provost at Plymouth State College and writer of “Taken by Storm, 1938: A Social and Meteorological History of the Great New England Hurricane”a book (American Meteorological Society, 2013) in regards to the historical past of hurricane naming.
If there are greater than 21 named storms in a hurricane season, there’s a backup checklist, which the WMO has had to make use of solely twice, in 2005 and 2020. It was fabricated from Greek letters (e.g., alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon), however in 2020, the WMO changed it with one other checklist of supplemental names.
If a storm is especially harmful, like hurricane Katrina or Fiona, the nation the place the hurricane made landfall can request that the WMO retire the identify. The group then votes on a brand new one to exchange it, selecting a reputation that begins with the identical letter of the alphabet. So, even when your identify does not seem on the checklist, there’s an opportunity that in a future WMO vote, your identify might find yourself on it.
Your identify is extra prone to be related to a well-known storm or a hurricane if it begins with a letter between G and R, which traces up with June and August, when atmospheric circumstances are optimum for producing tropical storms.
For instance, hurricane Ian emerged as a tropical wave within the Caribbean on Sept. 23, 2022, earlier than it turned Tropical Despair 9 with sustained winds slightly below 39 mph (63 km/h). When it reached winds of 45 mph (72 km/h), it obtained the identify Tropical Storm Ian, turning into the ninth named storm of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season. Then, it intensified into a hurricane on Sept. 26, 2022, reaching Class 4 earlier than hitting Florida and South Carolina days later. The U.S. requested the WMO to retire the identify Ian, changing it with Idris, which now seems on the list.
Historical past of hurricane names
A tall, stammering meteorologist arrived on the Nineteenth-century lecture corridor together with his papers falling round him. His identify was Clement Wragge, although his colleagues usually known as him “Inclement.”
Within the Nineteenth century, Spanish sailors named storms after saints, based on hurricane historian Ivan R. Tannehill. Hurricane San Felipe hit the nation in 1876, however one other hurricane of the identical identify appeared in 1928. The Spanish additionally had an issue when two tropical storms occurred on the identical day, nevertheless.
Wragge had an answer to this downside: He would confer with northern storms after native politicians he disliked, joking that the officers have been “inflicting nice misery” or “wandering aimlessly in regards to the Pacific” when a tropical storm got here calling.
“This can be a conference we ought to contemplate bringing again,” joked Kerry Emanuel, a professor of meteorology at MIT and writer of “Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes (Oxford College Press, 2005).
For the southern storms, Wragge began naming them after figures from Greek and Roman mythology. However when he ran out, he moved on to naming them after Pacific Island girls who had caught his eye. He’s as we speak credited as the primary meteorologist to start naming storms after girls, based on Tannehill.
Throughout World Battle II, U.S. pilots picked up Wragge’s naming practices. The Air Drive started naming tropical cyclones after their grandmas, wives and girlfriends again dwelling. “There have been, like, a number of hurricanes known as Carol and issues like that,” Avilés stated. “[It was used] in each methods to honor and to be sexist towards girls.”
Later, scientists anxious that gendering hurricanes may need lethal penalties. A 2014 examine even suggested that the general public sees hurricanes with historically male names as extra harmful — main them to take extra precautions — which has led hurricanes with feminine names to kill extra folks total.
Nonetheless, the examine has been broadly criticized because of a significant flaw: Hurricanes solely began receiving male names in 1979, however the 2014 examine used 60 years’ of hurricane damages, skewing the info. (Actually, if you happen to take away Hurricane Sandy from the dataset, male hurricanes transform deadlier total.)
What’s extra, hurricanes have gotten far much less lethal over time, largely due to the satellites that permit us to foretell the trail of hurricanes.
“It has been an important and unsung success story,” Emanuel stated. “Earlier than the satellite tv for pc period, you possibly can have storms out within the open ocean that nobody ever noticed or measured. They simply went undetected. We have gotten higher at making deductions at storm deductions of storm depth, although we’re nonetheless not that good at it.”