Hurricane names are even fodder for comedians. Sardonic comedian Lewis Black has expressed his views of 1991's Hurricane Bob and 1999's Hurricane Lenny. Satirical news source "The Onion" suggested that a nameless hurricane would be terrifying compared to a storm named 'Earl'. In 2012, Hurricane Fabio, which did not threaten land, elicited snickers from meteorologists tracking the storm in the Eastern Pacific.
A Little History
The word hurricane is derived from the Spanish word "huracan," which was most likely inspired by Hunrakan, the Mayan storm god, and Hurakan, a Taino and Carib god. The word hurricane was first used to describe any localized tropical cyclone in the West Indies.Today, a hurricane is an Atlantic or Eastern Pacific Basin tropical cyclone with maximum sustained wind speeds of 74 mph or higher.
Multiple tropical cyclones can develop simultaneously in various ocean basins, creating the possibility of confusion if a method for differentiating the storms did not exist. Naming tropical cyclones allows meteorologists to observe, track, and communicate the whereabouts of various systems at a given time.It is important to note that tropical cyclones/hurricanes are named neither after any particular person, nor with any preference in alphabetical sequence," states the WMO. "The tropical cyclone/hurricane names selected are those that are familiar to the people in each region."
Particularly deadly or costly storm names are retired in order to avoid confusion or insensitivity, and a new name is selected in its place. The names Camille, Andrew, and Katrina are among the retired.
Hurricane vs. Typhoon: What's the Difference?
The difference is rather simple: A tropical cyclone will be designated either a hurricane or a typhoon or a cyclone depending on the basin in which it forms.
Tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Basin that reach the 74 mph sustained wind speed threshold are called hurricanes, and they are monitored by the National Hurricane Center.
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In the Central and Eastern Pacific Basin, tropical cyclones are also called hurricanes, and they are monitored by the National Hurricane Center and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center.
In the Western Pacific Basin, tropical cyclones that exhibit sustained wind speeds of 39 mph are called tropical storms, just like in the Atlantic and in the eastern Pacific. At this point, they would receive a name from the list designated by the World Meteorological Organization.
However, when sustained wind speeds reach 74 mph, the cyclone is not called a hurricane but rather a typhoon,and they are monitored by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center as well as the Japan Meteorological Agency. When wind speeds reach 150 mph or greater, the system is called a "super typhoon", which is the equivalent of a strong Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale.
When typhoons threaten the Philippines, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) monitors the cyclones. As typhoons move west into China, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) monitors the storms.
In the southwestern Pacific and Indian Basins, the systems are called cyclones, and they are monitored by a handful of agencies including the India Meteorological Department, Meteo-France, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, and the Meteorological Service of New Zealand.
Historically, the convention behind naming hurricanes started off innocuously enough. For centuries, forecasters named storms after they hit, and those names would associate the storm with a particular place, time, or event. If a storm struck a particular ship or town, the hurricane was named after the collateral damage. An example of this is the Long Island Express, which is a hurricane that struck New England in 1938.
A modern example of naming hurricanes based on the day is the September 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, which earned its name because it made landfall in the central Florida Keys on Labor Day.
Why Do Tropical Storms and Hurricanes Receive Names Like Bob, Sandy, or Don?
Obviously meteorologists no longer name tropical storms and hurricanes after locations, dates, and saints. But why do they receive names like Norbert, Bob, Sandy, or Don?
It turns out that the process of naming hurricanes has a colorful history. What began as an Australian scientist's meteorological "middle finger" toward local politicians in the early 1900s morphed into a seemingly benign practice half a century later.
According to Chris Landsea at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), Clement Wragge, the Australian forecaster, began tracking tropical systems near the Australian continent in the early 1900s, and he was the first person to attribute a proper name to tropical cyclones.
Wragge originally used letters of the alphabet to identify storms before changing course to South Sea Island girls' names. However, when the Australian government refused to support his meteorological efforts, Wragge began attributing named storms “after political figures whom he disliked,” according to the AOML.
"By properly naming a hurricane, the weatherman could publicly describe a politician (who perhaps was not too generous with weather-bureau appropriations) as 'causing great distress' or 'wandering aimlessly about the Pacific,'" writes Landsea.
Years later, author George Stewart took inspiration from Wragge and wrote the novel "Storm." One of the characters in the book was a meteorologist who named Pacific systems after former girlfriends. Published in 1941, the novel was a hit with the U.S. Army Air Corp and Navy forecasters. Military forecasters began unofficially naming Pacific tempests "in honor” of their girlfriends and wives off-the-record.
"The U.S. Weather Bureau had a long history of being a somewhat stodgy institution in which change was disparaged," says Neal Dorst, a research meteorologist at the AOML. "They wanted to be seen as a serious enterprise, and using women's names for storms was looked upon as frivolous. They would have felt that using such names in official communications would have made them look silly."
George R. StewartWIKIPEDIA/PEPSO
Portrait of George R. Stewart
Nevertheless, military squadrons and meteorologists needed a system for denoting and tracking storms that formed in the Atlantic and Pacific Basins. In 1947, the U.S. Air Force compromised by using the Army/Navy phonetic alphabet. According to Dorst, the Army/Navy phonetic alphabet names were used in communications between aircraft and weather centers, however the names were not included in any public communications. Despite the use of the Army/Navy phonetic alphabet, Dorst explains a possible female name storm list was used by Air Force Hurricane Hunters during missions in 1947, as documented in the September issue of the "Coronet" magazine issued in September 1948.
The protocol for naming hurricanes and tropical storms solidified in 1950. That summer, three hurricanes developed simultaneously in the Atlantic Basin, generating confusion among the public and the press, who were not aware of any naming scheme for tropical storms and hurricanes. Instead of waiting until the following summer to introduce the naming concept to the public, the United States Weather Bureau (the precursor to the National Weather Service) and the Interdepartmental Hurricane Conference pulled the trigger on the fourth storm and named it Fox.
2014 Atlantic Names
In the Atlantic Basin, forecasters used the Army/Navy phonetic alphabet for tropical storms and hurricanes between 1950 and 1952. The list changed in 1952 to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) because the Army/Navy list was deemed too Anglo-centric. The change did not go smoothly.
"The U.S. Weather Bureau and the Armed Services would have adopted the new international standard, but as this was the first year of its use, I'm sure not everyone got the memo, which led to the confusion," said Dorst.
However, the confusion over the IPA wasn't the only debatable topic.
The Fight for Naming Equality
In 1953, the Interdepartmental Hurricane Conference and the U.S. Weather Bureau acquiesced to using women's names for labeling storms. Controversy began as early as 1954, when the October 19 edition of the Miami News wrote, "[it] seems a number of Northern newspapers editorially thought it was 'Capricious' to call the hurricanes Hazel, Carol, Alice, etc."
The Miami News
A clipping from the Oct. 18, 1954 edition of The Miami News.
In 1955, the Times-News, reported on a New Jersey politician's disdain for the policy. The article reported Rep. T. James Tumulty (D-NJ) "told a reporter that by following the practice, the weather bureau 'tends to treat a serious matter frivolously and may even aid to the deaths, injuries, and destruction' caused by hurricanes by unconsciously prompting the public to regard them frivolously, too." The paper then listed Tumulty's suggested list of names: Hurricane Awesome, Hurricane Blustery, Hurricane Casualty, and Hurricane Death.
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