From Tropical – Hurricane

Weather forecasters have learned over the years that short, distinctive names in written and spoken communications is quicker and more effective than previous naming conventions based on latitude-longitude methods.

Beginning in1953, Atlantic tropical storms have been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane Center. They are now maintained and updated by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization.

Tropical depressions are given a sequential “TD” number during a given hurricane season. A name is assigned when a tropical cyclone reaches “tropical storm” strength.

The original name lists used only women’s names, but beginning in 1979 men’s names were introduced. Male and female names now alternate through the hurricane season. A list of hurricanes for six years is used, and the same names rotated and re-used. In the event of a cataclysmic hurricane, the name is retired, removed from rotation, and replaced with a new name.

In the event that more than 21 named tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin in a season, additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, etc. This was the case in the 2005 hurricane season.

See attached list.

List of Retired Hurricane Names

The names of costly and deadly storms are retired, and removed from lists for future years. Shown below is a list of retired hurricane names, and the year in which the hurricane occurred. The latest name to be retired, in April of 2013, is “Sandy”, the “superstorm” which hit the upper Atlantic coastline in late October, 2012. Sandy was the second costliest hurricane in U.S. history, surpassed only by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Also attached is a list of retired hurricane names, and the year in which the hurricane occurred.

PHOTO: Hurricane Epsilon … the 27th tropical cyclone of 2005

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