THE HISTORY OF HURRICANE NAMES
DEAN THE FIRST HURRICANE OF THE 2007 SEASON
DEAN FROM THE SPACE SHUTTLE
The following is directly from NOAA regarding hurricane names which is appropriate now just days after the first major hurricane of the 2007 season.
Atlantic Hurricanes
A History of Hurricane Names
For several hundred years, many hurricanes in the West Indies were named after the particular saint's day on which the hurricane occurred. Ivan R. Tannehill describes in his book HURRICANES the major tropical storms of recorded history and mentions many hurricanes named after saints. For example, there was Hurricane Santa Ana, which struck Puerto Rico with exceptional violence on July 26, 1825, and San Felipe (the first) and San Felipe (the second) which hit Puerto Rico on September 13 in both 1876 and 1928.
Tannehill also tells of Clement Wragge, an Australian meteorologist, who began giving women's names to tropical storms before the end of the 19th century.
An early example of the use of a woman's name for a storm was in the novel Storm by George R. Stewart, published by Random House in 1941, and since filmed by Walt Disney. During World War II, this practice became widespread in weather map discussions among forecasters, especially Air Force and Navy meteorologists who plotted the movements of storms over the wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean.
In 1953, the United States abandoned as confusing a two-year old plan to name storms by phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie) when a new, international phonetic alphabet was introduced. That year, this Nation's weather services began using female names for storms. (The practice of naming hurricanes solely after women came to an end in 1978 when men's and women's names were included in the Eastern North Pacific storm lists. In 1979, male and female names were included in lists for the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.
Aside by JB. In 1953 I experienced my first hurricane named Carol in Manhasset Bay on the north shore of Long Island, N.Y. I was 16 years old and slept through the entire night-long storm aboard the racing sloop Hi Q while my dad and other members of the semi-permanent crew discussed how to sail out of the harbor if our mooring dragged. Fortunately it didn't. A sort-of place in history, even though I slept through it.
Why Hurricanes Are Named
Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive given names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods. These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, airports, coastal bases, and ships at sea.
The use of easily remembered names greatly reduces confusion when two or more tropical storms occur at the same time. For example, one hurricane can be moving slowly westward in the Gulf of Mexico, while at exactly the same time another hurricane can be moving rapidly northward along the Atlantic coast. In the past, confusion and false rumors have arisen when storm advisories broadcast from one radio station were mistaken for warnings concerning an entirely different storm located hundreds of miles away.
Present Procedure in the North Atlantic,
Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico
The Tropical Prediction Center near Miami, FL, keeps a constant watch on oceanic storm-breeding areas for tropical disturbances that may herald the formation of a hurricane. If a disturbance intensifies into a tropical storm with rotary circulation and wind speeds above 39 miles per hour the Center will give the storm a name from one of the lists below. The Center uses a new set of names each year beginning with the first name in the set. After the sets have all been used, they are reused. For example, TPC is reusing the 2006 set in 2012. The letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z are not included because of the scarcity of names beginning with those letters. TPC retires a name after a major land-falling storm with major economic impact. For example, Katrina will be retired this year after its devastating impact.
The name lists have an international flavor because hurricanes affect other nations and are tracked by the public and weather services of many countries. Names for these lists are selected from library sources
and agreed upon at international meetings of the World Meteorological Organization.
Three-Year List of Names for Atlantic Storms
2006 2007 2008
Alberto Andrea Arthur
Beryl Barry Bertha
Chris Chantal Christobal
Debby Dean Dolly
Ernesto Erin Edouard
Florence Felix Fay
Gordon Gabrielle Gustav
Helene Humberto Hanna
Isaac Ingrid Ike
Joyce Jerry Josephine
Kirk Karen Kyle
Leslie Lorenzo Laura
Michael Melissa Marco
Nadine Noel Nana
Oscar Olga Omar
Patty Pablo Paloma
Rafael Rebekah Rene
Sandy Sabastion Sally
Tony Tanya Teddy
Valarie Van Vicky
William Wendy Wilfred
Thats the lists of names and the history of the thing. Our business plan demands including all aspects of these magnificant storms. Lets hope none of these names stays in your brain for more than a few minutes. If it becomes a part of your permanent memory bank than it was a major storm. So far since Dean it's been quiet. The peak of the season was the middle of August and the possibility of storms decreases as the sun moves north taking away its source of heat that warms the water that powers the storms.
Thants that for this.
Take care,
JB
Very interesting ... I learned a lot. I loved the aside about sleeping thru Hurricane Carol. At 15 my daughter took a trip down the ICW with us ... slept thru the whole thing.
Reply to this
Thank you Tami. Young people tend to ignore life threatening experiences or even spectacular boat trips. However they retain much which shapes them mostly in positive ways that are apparent later in life. My own early life might be an example. I'll leave it to others to decide if it was positive.
Thanks for writing,
JB
Reply to this