Sunday, September 25, 2005

Hurricane Alpha? ut oh

If you hear that Hurricane Alpha is in the sky, then we've had one too many this year. Hurricane Rita was number 17 for the year, with just 4 left for the remainder. The remaining names are: Stan, Tammy, Vince and Wilma. The letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z aren't included because of the scarcity of names.
According to NOAA, if there are more than 21 hurricanes in the Atlantic basin this season, up to 24 additional storm names will be taken from the Greek alphabet.(Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc.)

Naming hurricanes began hundreds of years ago in the West Indies. At that time they were normally named for whatever saint's day the hurricane fell on. There were 2 on San Felipe's day, so there is a "Hurricane San Felipe" and a "Hurricane San Felipe the second."
After that, latitude-longitude positions were used in place of names, but this proved to be time consuming & confusing.
When a novel called "Storm" by George R. Stewart was released, the storm in his book was named after a woman. This soon caught on & became practice during WWII.
In 1951 however, the United States adopted a new plan, this one named storms by a phonetic alphabet. (Alpha, Baker, Charles) This didn't last long as the hurricanes were once again named after women in 1953.
In 1978 we reached a new beginning. At the urging of feminists, hurricanes were now named after both males & females in the Pacific region. The Atlantic basin and the Gulf of Mexico also adopted this practice in 1979.

History has shown that using short, distinct names are more efficient when communicating by written or spoken means. These advantages are even more evident during exchanges between widely scattered stations, coastal bases & ships at sea.
The lists of names have been agreed upon by meetings at the World Meteorological Organization and have a French, Spanish, Dutch and English flavor because of the global tracking all over the world.
Once a the winds from a storm reaches 39 mph (34 kts), the cycles are given names taken from the present years list, one of a 6 year rotating list. For example, the hurricane names in 2001 will repeat in the year 2007.
Hurricanes that have caused too much destruction & loss of death, such as Hurricane Katrina, will be retired.
There are presently 10 regions that have their own names & cycles for naming hurricanes:
~ Atlantic & Eastern North Pacific ~ alphabetical & re-cycled every 6 years.
~ Central North Pacific, Western North Pacific, Northern Australian Region, Eastern Australian Region ~ lists are used sequentially. If the last storm of the year is Ann, the first storm of the next year is Bob.
~ Fiji Region ~ Lists A,B,C,D,E. Lists A-D are used sequentially. List E has replacement names.
~ Papua New Guinea Region ~ Lists A and B, used sequentially.
~ Philippine Region ~ alphabetical with 25 letters and recycles every 4 years.
~ Southwest Indian Ocean ~ Lists are used sequentially and are not rotated.

So, are you curious to find out if a hurricane shares your name? If you are, the link is below. If you check, please come back & comment to let me know. (I'm curious too!) To see names used for hurricanes, click here.

Technorati tags: hurricane, hurricane rita, hurricane katrina, NOAA, NOAA, WEST INDIES, GEORGE R. STEWART, world meteorological organization

posted by jane at 10:17 PM