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Once sailors used the names of their old girlfriends or the names of saints to identify tropical storms and hurricanes. Now the World Meteorological Organization is responsible for the names for storms. They came up with 6 years worth of names that alternates between male and female names. There are separate lists for the
Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and every 6 years they re-use the names.
The old practice of using only female names changed in 1979, but I am still asked why they only used women’s names. Believe me, I am not going there.
Here is the list of names for the Atlantic this year: Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dean, Erin, Felix, Gabrielle, Humberto, Ingrid, Jerry, Karen, Lorenzo, Melissa, Noel, Olga, Pablo, Rebekah, Sebastien, Tanya, Van, and Wendy.
If you noticed some of the letters of the missing you are correct. Because of the lack of names beginning with Q, U, X, Y, and Z, those have been omitted.
To keep from causing confusion, if a hurricane does a significant amount of damage, the name is retired. Names like Andrew, Camille, and Katrina will never be used again. The international meteorological body decides on which names to retire and a suitable name to replace it.
We do not name tornadoes because there are just too many and this would be too confusing. I would seem too odd to hear your local weatherman saying, “Fred will be arriving in your town in 12 minutes. Take cover now!”
If you have a weather question for Dan, send it to: askdan@kjrh.com
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