Did you know that the name of a storm is determined long in advance? Lists of names are used in rotation, and recycled every six years. For example, a name used for a storm this year can be used again in the year 2026. Some readers of The KIDS Herald will be too young to remember, but a hurricane called Gonzalo hit the island six years ago, in October 2014. Now, you can see below that the same name is on rotation again for this year.
The names are listed in alphabetical order, although a few letters are skipped. Last week, we experienced lots of rain, which was from the outer bands of a storm called Isaias. Since it starts with an “I”, that name tells you how far down the list we are.
If one year we run out of letters because more than 21 named storms form in the Atlantic Basin, then the extra storms would take names from the Greek alphabet, such as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc. There are also a few other parts of the world that experience hurricanes, and there are separate name lists for those areas.
Atlantic storms have been named since 1953. We all know that getting information on storms is very important. Using short, unique names that are easy to remember makes for better communication. That’s because it’s quick, and people won’t get confused between different storms that may be active in different locations at the same time.
Before storms carried names, they were described by their location (longitude and latitude): a long string of numbers. That makes it take more time to get the message across, and it can be confusing and tiring.
If a storm is especially deadly or destructive, the name is crossed off the list at the annual meeting of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) so that it will not be used again. This is because it would be insensitive to re-use it. At the same meeting, they will pick another name to replace it. Two hurricane names that we will remember from 2017 have been struck off the list: Irma and Maria!
Names of Atlantic Storms for the year 2020:
Arthur
Bertha
Cristobal
Dolly
Edouard
Fay
Gonzalo
Hanna
Isaias
Josephine
Kyle
Laura
Marco
Nana
Omar
Paulette
Rene
Sally
Teddy
Vicky
Wilfred
