The practice of using names to identify
tropical cyclone
A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...
s goes back several centuries, with storms named after places, saints or things they hit before the formal start of naming in each basin. Examples of such names are the
1928 Okeechobee hurricane (also known as the "San Felipe II" hurricane) and the
1938 New England hurricane
The 1938 New England Hurricane (also referred to as the Great Long Island - New England Hurricane and the Long Island Express) was one of the deadliest and most destructive tropical cyclones to strike the United States. The storm formed near th ...
. The system currently in place provides identification of tropical cyclones in a brief form that is easily understood and recognized by the public. The credit for the first usage of personal names for weather systems is given to the
Queensland Government
The Queensland Government is the state government of Queensland, Australia, a Parliament, parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Government is formed by the party or coalition that has gained a majority in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, ...
Meteorologist
Clement Wragge, who named tropical cyclones and anticyclones between 1887 and 1907. This system of naming fell into disuse for several years after Wragge retired, until it was revived in the latter part of World War II for the Western Pacific. Over the following decades, formal naming schemes were introduced for several tropical cyclone basins, including the
North and South Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Western and Southern Pacific basins as well as the
Australian region and
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...
.
However, there has been controversy over the names used at various times, with names being dropped for religious and political reasons. Female names were exclusively used in the basins at various times between 1945 and 2000 and were the subject of several protests. At present tropical cyclones are officially named by one of eleven meteorological services and retain their names throughout their lifetimes. Due to the potential for longevity and multiple concurrent storms, the names reduce the confusion about what storm is being described in forecasts, watches and warnings. Names are assigned in order from predetermined
lists once storms have one, three, or ten-minute sustained wind speeds of more than , depending on which basin it originates in. Standards vary from basin to basin, with some tropical depressions named in the Western Pacific, while a significant amount of gale-force winds are required in the
Southern Hemisphere. The names of significant tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Australian region are retired from the naming lists and replaced with another name, at meetings of the World Meteorological Organization's various tropical cyclone committees.
Formal start of naming
The practice of using names to identify
tropical cyclone
A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...
s goes back several centuries, with systems named after places, people (like
Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
saints
In Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Anglican, Oriental Orth ...
), or things they hit before the formal start of naming in each basin.
Examples include the 1526 San Francisco hurricane (named after Saint
Francis of Assisi
Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone ( 1181 – 3 October 1226), known as Francis of Assisi, was an Italians, Italian Mysticism, mystic, poet and Friar, Catholic friar who founded the religious order of the Franciscans. Inspired to lead a Chris ...
, whose
feast day
The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does n ...
is observed by Catholics on October 4),
the 1834
Padre Ruiz hurricane (named after a then-recently deceased Catholic priest whose funeral service was being held in the
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...
upon landfall there),
the
1928 Okeechobee hurricane (named after
Lake Okeechobee
Lake Okeechobee ( ) is the largest freshwater lake in the U.S. state of Florida. It is the List of largest lakes of the United States by area, eighth-largest natural freshwater lake among the 50 states of the United States and the second-largest ...
in the state of
Florida
Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
, United States, where many of its effects were felt; also named the San Felipe II hurricane in the predominantly-Catholic island of
Puerto Rico
; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...
after a certain
Saint Philip with a September 13 feast day),
and the
1938 New England hurricane
The 1938 New England Hurricane (also referred to as the Great Long Island - New England Hurricane and the Long Island Express) was one of the deadliest and most destructive tropical cyclones to strike the United States. The storm formed near th ...
. Credit for the first usage of personal names for weather is generally given to the Queensland Government Meteorologist
Clement Wragge, who named tropical cyclones and anticyclones between 1887 and 1907.
Wragge used names drawn from the letters of the Greek alphabet, Greek and Roman mythology and female names, to describe weather systems over Australia, New Zealand and the Antarctic.
After the new Australian government had failed to create a federal weather bureau and appoint him director, Wragge started naming cyclones after political figures.
This system of naming weather systems subsequently fell into disuse for several years after Wragge retired, until it was revived in the latter part of the Second World War.
Despite falling into disuse, the naming scheme was occasionally mentioned in the press, with an editorial published in the Launceston Examiner newspaper on October 5, 1935, that called for the return of the naming scheme.
Wragge's naming was also mentioned within Sir
Napier Shaw
Sir William Napier Shaw (4 March 1854 – 23 March 1945) was a British meteorologist. He introduced the tephigram, a diagram for evaluating convective instability in the atmosphere. He also served as president of the International Meteorologic ...
's "Manual of Meteorology" which likened it to a "child naming waves".
After reading about Clement Wragge,
George Stewart was inspired to write a novel, ''
Storm
A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere of an astronomical body. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, tornadoes, hail, thunder and lightning (a thunderstor ...
'', about a storm affecting
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
which was named Maria.
The book was widely read after it was published in 1941 by
Random House
Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
, especially by
United States Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical ri ...
and United States Navy
(USN) meteorologists during World War II.
During 1944,
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
forecasters
(USAAF) at the newly established
Saipan
Saipan () is the largest island and capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, an unincorporated Territories of the United States, territory of the United States in the western Pacific Ocean. According to 2020 estimates by the United States Cens ...
weather center, started to informally name typhoons after their wives and girlfriends.
This practise became popular amongst meteorologists from the United States Airforce and Navy who found that it reduced confusion during map discussions, and in 1945 the United States Armed Services publicly adopted a list of women's names for typhoons of the Pacific.
However, they were not able to persuade the
United States Weather Bureau
The National Weather Service (NWS) is an Government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weathe ...
(USWB) to start naming Atlantic hurricanes, as the Weather Bureau wanted to be seen as a serious enterprise, and thus felt that it was "not appropriate" to name tropical cyclones while warning the United States public.
They also felt that using women's names was frivolous and that using the names in official communications would have made them look silly.
During 1947 the Air Force Hurricane Office in Miami started using the
Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet
The Allied military phonetic spelling alphabets prescribed the words that are used to represent each letter of the alphabet, when spelling other words out loud, letter-by-letter, and how the spelling words should be pronounced for use by the All ...
to name significant tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic Ocean.
These names were used over the next few years in private/internal communications between weather centres and aircraft and were not included in public bulletins.
During August and September 1950, three tropical cyclones (Hurricanes
Baker
A baker is a tradesperson who baking, bakes and sometimes Sales, sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery.
History
Ancient histo ...
,
Dog
The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the gray wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from a population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers. ...
and
Easy) occurred simultaneously and impacted the United States during August and September 1950, which led to confusion within the media and the public.
As a result, during the next tropical cyclone (
Fox
Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush").
Twelve species ...
),
Grady Norton
Grady Norton (1894 – October 9, 1954) was an American meteorologist. He is widely recognized as the original director of the National Hurricane Center even though that position would not be created during his lifetime.
The son of a farmer, Norto ...
decided to start using the names in public statements and in the seasonal summary.
This practice continued throughout the season, until the system was made official before the start of the
next season.
During 1952, a new
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...
was introduced, as the
old phonetic alphabet was seen as too
Anglocentric.
This led to some confusion with what names were being used, as some observers referred to
Hurricane Charlie as "Cocoa."
Ahead of the
following season no agreement could be reached over which phonetic alphabet to use, before it was decided to start using a list of female names to name tropical cyclones.
During the season the names were used in the press with only a few objections recorded, and as a result public reception to the idea seemed favourable. The same names were reused during 1954 with only one change: Gilda for Gail.
However, as Hurricanes
Carol,
Edna, and
Hazel
Hazels are plants of the genus ''Corylus'' of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family, Betulaceae,Germplasmgobills Information Network''Corylus''Rushforth, K ...
affected the populated
Northeastern United States
The Northeastern United States (also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau. Located on the East Coast of the United States, ...
, controversy raged with several protests over the use of women's names as it was felt to be ungentlemanly or insulting to womanhood, or both.
Letters were subsequently received that overwhelmingly supported the practise, with forecasters claiming that 99% of correspondence received in the Miami Weather Bureau supported the use of women's names for hurricanes.
Forecasters subsequently decided to continue with the current practice of naming hurricanes after women but developed a new set of names ahead of the
1955 season with the names Carol, Edna and Hazel retired for the next ten years.
However, before the names could be written, a tropical storm was discovered on January 2, 1955, and named
Alice
Alice may refer to:
* Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname
Literature
* Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll
* ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...
.
The Representative
T. James Tumulty subsequently announced that he intended to introduce legislation that would call on the USWB to abandon its practice of naming hurricanes after women, and suggested that they be named using descriptive terms instead. Until 1960, forecasters decided to develop a new set of names each year.
By 1958, the Guam Weather Center had become the Fleet Weather Central/Typhoon Tracking Center on Guam, and had started to name systems as they became tropical storms rather than typhoons.
Later that year during the 1958–59 cyclone season, the New Caledonia Meteorological Office started to name tropical cyclones within the Southern Pacific.
During 1959 the
US Pacific Command Commander in Chief and the
Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, which advises the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and ...
decided that the various US Navy and Air Force weather units would become one unit based on
Guam
Guam ( ; ) is an island that is an Territories of the United States, organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, Guam, Hagåtña, and the most ...
entitled the
Fleet Weather Central/Joint Typhoon Warning Center, which continued naming the systems for the Pacific basin.
1960–1990s
In January 1960, a formal naming scheme was introduced for the South-West Indian Ocean by the Mauritius and Madagascan Weather Services. with the first cyclone being named Alix. Later that year, as
meteorology
Meteorology is the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agricultur ...
entered a new era with the launching of the world's first
meteorological satellite
A weather satellite or meteorological satellite is a type of Earth observation satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. Satellites are mainly of two types: polar orbiting (covering the entire Earth asyn ...
TIROS-1
TIROS-1 (or TIROS-A) was the first operational weather satellite, the first of a series of ''Television Infrared Observation Satellites'' (TIROS) placed in low Earth orbit.
Program
The TIROS Program was NASA's first experimental step to dete ...
, eight lists of tropical cyclone names were prepared for use in the
Atlantic and Eastern Pacific basins.
In the Atlantic it was decided to rotate these lists every four years, while in the Eastern Pacific, the names were designed to be used consecutively before being repeated.
During December 1962, New Caledonia proposed to the third session of the World Meteorological Organisation's Regional Association V, that tropical cyclones in the region should be named using female names.
Other members of the association considered using masculine Christian names to the south of the Equator, to avoid any confusion with the names used in the Northern Hemisphere.
Ultimately the association decided that there was no need for a naming scheme to be introduced to the south of the Equator.
However, it had no objections to members naming systems on a national basis provided that the same names were not allocated in neighbouring regions, to different cyclones.
During the following year, the
Philippine Weather Bureau (later reorganized into PAGASA in 1972) adopted four sets of female Filipino nicknames ending in "ng" from A to Y for use in its self-defined
area of responsibility
Area of responsibility (AOR) is a pre-defined geographic region assigned to Combatant commanders of the Unified Command Plan (UCP), that are used to define an area with specific geographic boundaries where they have the authority to plan and c ...
.
Following the international practise of naming tropical cyclones, the
Australian Bureau of Meteorology
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM or BoM) is an executive agency of the Australian Government that is responsible for providing weather forecasts and meteorological services to Australia and neighbouring countries. It was established in 1906 unde ...
decided at a conference in October 1963 that they would start naming tropical cyclones after women at the start of the
1963–64 cyclone season. The first
Western Australia
Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
n cyclone was subsequently named Bessie on January 6, 1964. In 1965, after two of the Eastern Pacific lists of names had been used, it was decided to start recycling the sets of names on an annual basis like in the Atlantic.
At its 1969 national conference, the
National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...
passed a motion that called for the
National Hurricane Center
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is the division of the United States' NOAA/National Weather Service responsible for tracking and predicting tropical weather systems between the IERS Reference Meridian, Prime Meridian and the 140th meridian ...
(NHC) not to name tropical cyclones using only female names. Later that year, during the
1969–70 cyclone season, the
New Zealand Meteorological Service
Meteorological Service of New Zealand Limited, or simply MetService (), is the national meteorological service of New Zealand. MetService was established as a State-owned enterprises of New Zealand, state-owned enterprise in 1992. It employs a ...
(NZMS) office in
Fiji
Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...
started to name tropical cyclones that developed within the
South Pacific basin, with the first named Alice on January 4, 1970.
Within the Atlantic basin the four lists of names were used until 1971, when the newly established United States
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with Weather forecasting, forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, Hydrography, charting the seas, ...
decided to inaugurate a ten-year list of names for the basin.
Roxcy Bolton subsequently petitioned the 1971, 1972 and 1973 interdepartmental hurricane conferences to stop the female naming; however, the
National Hurricane Center
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is the division of the United States' NOAA/National Weather Service responsible for tracking and predicting tropical weather systems between the IERS Reference Meridian, Prime Meridian and the 140th meridian ...
responded by stating that there was a 20:1 positive response to the usage of female names.
In February 1975, the NZMS decided to incorporate male names into the naming lists for the South Pacific, from the following season after a request from the Fiji National Council of Women who considered the practice discriminatory.
At around the same time the
Australian Science Minister ordered that tropical cyclones within the Australian region should carry both men's and women's names, as the minister thought "that both sexes should bear the odium of the devastation caused by cyclones."
Male names were subsequently added to the lists for the Southern Pacific and each of the three Australian tropical cyclone warning centres ahead of the 1975–76 season.
In 1977 the
World Meteorological Organization
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology an ...
decided to form a hurricane committee, which held its first meeting in May 1978 and took control of the
Atlantic hurricane naming lists.
During 1978 the
Secretary of Commerce
The United States secretary of commerce (SecCom) is the head of the United States Department of Commerce. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to commerce. The secretary rep ...
Juanita Kreps ordered
NOAA administrator Robert White to cease the sole usage of female names for hurricanes.
Robert White subsequently passed the order on to the Director of NHC
Neil Frank
Neil Laverne Frank (born September 11, 1931) is an American meteorologist and former director of the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Florida. He was instrumental in advancing both the scientific and informational aspects of hurricane forecas ...
, who attended the first meeting of the hurricane committee and requested that both men's and women's names be used for the Atlantic.
The committee subsequently decided to accept the proposal and adopted five new lists of male and female names to be used the following year.
The lists also contained several Spanish and French names, so that they could reflect the cultures and languages used within the Atlantic Ocean.
After an agreement was reached between Mexico and the United States, six new sets of male/female names were implemented for the Eastern Pacific basin during 1978.
A new list was also drawn up during the year for the Western Pacific and was implemented after Typhoon Bess and the 1979 tropical cyclone conference.
As the dual-sex naming of tropical cyclones started in the Northern Hemisphere, the NZMS considered adding ethnic Pacific names to the naming lists rather than the European names that were currently used.
As a result of the many languages and cultures in the Pacific there was a lot of discussion surrounding this matter, with one name, "Oni", being dropped as it meant "the end of the world" in one language.
One proposal suggested that cyclones be named from the country nearest to which they formed; however, this was dropped when it was realized that a cyclone might be less destructive in its formative stage than later in its development.
Eventually it was decided to combine names from all over the South Pacific into a single list at a training course, where each course member provided a list of names that were short, easily pronounced, culturally acceptable throughout the Pacific and did not contain any idiosyncrasies.
These names were then collated, edited for suitability, and cross-checked with the group for acceptability.
It was intended that the four lists of names should be alphabetical with alternating male and female names while using only ethnic names. However, it was not possible to complete the lists using only ethnic names.
As a result, there was a scattering of European names in the final lists, which have been used by the
Fiji Meteorological Service
The Fiji Meteorological Service (FMS) is a Department of the government of Fiji responsible for providing weather forecasts and is based on the grounds of Nadi Airport in Nadi. The current director of Fiji Meteorological Service is Misaeli Funak ...
and NZMS since the
1980–81 season.
During October 1985 the Eastern Pacific Hurricane Center had to request an additional list after the names preselected for that season were used up. As a result, the names Xina, York, Zelda, Xavier, Yolanda, Zeke were subsequently added to the naming lists, while a contingency plan of using the Greek alphabet if all of the names were used up was introduced.
New millennium
During the 30th session of the ESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee in November 1997, a proposal was put forward by Hong Kong to give Asian typhoons local names and to stop using the European and American names that had been used since 1945.
The committee's Training and Research Coordination Group was subsequently tasked to consult with members and work out the details of the scheme in order to present a list of names for approval at the 31st session.
During August 1998, the group met and decided that each member of the committee would be invited to contribute ten names to the list and that five principles would be followed for the selection of names.
It was also agreed that each name would have to be approved by each member and that a single objection would be enough to veto a name.
A list of 140 names was subsequently drawn up and submitted to the Typhoon Committee's 32nd session, who after a lengthy discussion approved the list and decided to implement it on January 1, 2000.
It was also decided that the
Japan Meteorological Agency
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA; ''気象庁, Kishō-chō'') is a division of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism dedicated to the Scientific, scientific observation and research of natural phenomena. Headquartered ...
would name the systems rather than the
Joint Typhoon Warning Center
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) is a joint United States Navy – United States Air Force command in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The JTWC is responsible for the issuing of tropical cyclone warnings in the North-West Pacific Ocean, South P ...
.
In 1998, PAGASA conducted "Name a Bagyo Contest", a contest designed to revise the naming scheme for typhoons within the Philippine Area of Responsibility with 140 names submitted in 1999 and the contest prompted PAGASA to begin using the revised naming system with four sets of 25 names and 10 auxiliary names, (replacing its list of female names that used since 1963) rotating every four years, in 2001 and later revised in 2005.
During its annual session in 2000, the WMO/ESCAP Panel on North Indian Tropical Cyclones agreed in principle to start assigning names to
cyclonic storms that developed within the North Indian Ocean.
As a result of this, the panel requested that each of the eight member countries submit a list of ten names to a rapporteur by the end of 2000.
At the 2001 session, the rapporteur reported that of the eight countries involved, only India had refused to submit a list of names, as it had several reservations about assigning names to tropical cyclones.
The panel then studied the names and felt that some of the names would not be appealing to the public or the media and thus requested that members submit new lists of names.
Over the next couple of years, each country submitted their lists of names and they started to be used during September 2004, when the first tropical cyclone was named
Onil by the
India Meteorological Department
India Meteorological Department (IMD) is an Indian agency of the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India. It is the principal agency responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasting and seismology. IMD is headquar ...
(IMD).
At the 22nd hurricane committee in 2000, it was decided that any tropical cyclone that moved from the Atlantic to the Eastern Pacific basin and vice versa would no longer be renamed,
provided it remained a tropical cyclone (depression, storm, or hurricane) for its entire crossing of the land mass between the basins. In that case, the
National Hurricane Center
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is the division of the United States' NOAA/National Weather Service responsible for tracking and predicting tropical weather systems between the IERS Reference Meridian, Prime Meridian and the 140th meridian ...
would be continuously issuing advisories on a regular 6-hour interval without interruption. According to a spokesman for the NHC, "If there is a gap in the advisories, it gets a new name" instead.
Ahead of the
2000–01 season, it was decided to start using male names, as well as female names for tropical cyclones developing in the South-West Indian Ocean.
During September 2001, RSMC La Réunion proposed that the basin adopt a single circular list of names and that a tropical cyclone have only one name during its lifetime.
However, both of these proposals were rejected at the fifteenth session of the RA I Tropical Cyclone Committee for the South-West Indian Ocean during September 2001.
During the 2002 Atlantic hurricane season the naming of
subtropical cyclone
A subtropical cyclone is a weather system that has some characteristics of both tropical cyclone, tropical and extratropical cyclones.
As early as the 1950s, meteorologists were uncertain whether they should be characterized as Tropical cyclone ...
s restarted, with names assigned to systems from the main list of names drawn up for that year.
During March 2004, a rare tropical cyclone developed within the Southern Atlantic, about to the east-southeast of Florianópolis in southern Brazil.
As the system was threatening the Brazilian state of
Santa Catarina, a newspaper used the headline "Furacão Catarina", which was presumed to mean "furacão (hurricane) threatening (Santa) Catarina (the state)".
However, when the international press started monitoring the system, it was assumed that "Furacão Catarina" meant "Cyclone Catarina" and that it had been formally named in the usual way.
During the
2005 Atlantic hurricane season
The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a record-breaking, devastating and deadly Atlantic hurricane season. It is the second-costliest hurricane season, just behind the 2017 season And 2024. It featured 28 tropical and subtropical storms, ...
the names pre-assigned for the North Atlantic basin were exhausted and as a result letters of the Greek alphabet were used.
There were subsequently a couple of attempts to get rid of the Greek names, as they are seen to be inconsistent with the standard naming convention used for tropical cyclones, generally unknown and confusing to the public.
However, none of the attempts succeeded and the Greek alphabet was used again in 2020, when the list of names for the Atlantic Ocean was used up.
After multiple highly catastrophic and damaging Greek-named storms in 2020, however (examples being
Zeta
Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; , , classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived from the Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician letter zay ...
,
Eta
Eta ( ; uppercase , lowercase ; ''ē̂ta'' or ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel, . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative, , in most dialects of Ancient Greek, it ...
, and
Iota
Iota (; uppercase Ι, lowercase ι; ) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh. Letters that arose from this letter include the Latin I and J, the Cyrillic І (І, і), Yi (Ї, ї), and J ...
) along with the overarching concerns about the confusing and inconsistent nature of the system, the WMO officially discontinued the use of the Greek alphabet to name storms in 2021, instead implementing a supplemental list of regular, replaceable names in both the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific basins in the event either basin experiences a season that exhausts the pre-designated names in the original lists.
Ahead of the
2007 hurricane season, the
Central Pacific Hurricane Center
The Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) of the United States National Weather Service is the official body responsible for tracking and issuing tropical cyclone warnings, watches, advisories, discussions, and statements for the Central Pacif ...
(CPHC) and the Hawaii State Civil Defense requested that the hurricane committee retire eleven names from the Eastern Pacific naming lists.
However, the committee declined the request and noted that its criteria for the retirement of names was "well defined and very strict."
It was felt that while the systems may have had a significant impact on the Hawaiian Islands, none of the impacts were major enough to warrant the retirement of the names.
It was also noted that the committee had previously not retired names for systems that had a greater impact than those that had been submitted.
The CPHC also introduced a revised set of Hawaiian names for the Central Pacific, after they had worked with the
University of Hawaii
A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...
Hawaiian studies department to ensure the correct meaning and appropriate historical and cultural use of the names.
On April 22, 2008, the newly established tropical cyclone warning centre in
Jakarta, Indonesia
Jakarta (; , Betawi language, Betawi: ''Jakartè''), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta (; ''DKI Jakarta'') and formerly known as Batavia, Dutch East Indies, Batavia until 1949, is the capital and largest city of Indonesia and ...
named its first system:
Durga
Durga (, ) is a major Hindu goddess, worshipped as a principal aspect of the mother goddess Mahadevi. She is associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction, and wars.
Durga's legend centres around combating evils and demonic ...
, before two sets of Indonesian names were established for their area of responsibility ahead of the
2008–09 season.
At the same time the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, merged their three lists into one national list of names.
The issue of tropical cyclones being renamed when they moved across 90°E into the South-West Indian Ocean, was subsequently brought up during October 2008 at the 18th session of the RA I Tropical Cyclone Committee.
However, it was decided to postpone the matter until the following committee meeting so that various consultations could take place.
During the 2009 Tropical Cyclone RSMCs/TCWCs Technical Coordination Meeting, it was reaffirmed that a tropical cyclone name should be retained throughout a system's lifetime, including when moving from one basin to another, to avoid confusion.
As a result, it was proposed at the following year's RA I tropical cyclone committee, that systems stopped being renamed when they moved into the South-West Indian Ocean from the Australian region.
It was subsequently agreed that during an interim period, cyclones that moved into the basin would have a name attached to their existing name, before it was stopped at the start of the 2012–13 season.
Tropical Cyclone Bruce was subsequently the first tropical cyclone not to be renamed, when it moved into the South-West Indian Ocean during 2013–14.
On March 12, 2010, public and private weather services in Southern Brazil, decided to name a tropical storm Anita to avoid confusion in future references.
A naming list was subsequently set up by the Brazilian Navy Hydrographic Center with the names Arani, Bapo and Cari taken from that list during 2011 and 2015.
At its twenty-first session in 2015, the RA I Tropical Cyclone Committee reviewed the arrangements for naming tropical storms and decided that the procedure was in need of a "very urgent change".
In particular, it was noted that the procedure did not take into account any of the significant improvements in the science surrounding tropical cyclones and that it was biased due to inappropriate links with some national warning systems.
The committee subsequently decided that three lists of names would rotate from year to year, with any names used being automatically replaced at the next RA I Tropical Cyclone Committee.
During its twenty-third session in 2019, the committee noticed some inconsistency between the operational plan and the WMO technical regulations which defined the roles and responsibilities of tropical cyclone RSMC's.
As a result, the committee decided to acknowledge the authority of RSMC La Réunion and gave them the right to name tropical cyclones.
During 2020, a new list of names was issued by the panel for tropical cyclones, as the majority of the names in the existing list had been used.
Modern day
At present tropical cyclones are officially named by one of eleven warning centres and retain their names throughout their lifetimes to provide ease of communication between forecasters and the general public regarding forecasts, watches, and warnings.
Due to the potential for longevity and multiple concurrent storms, the names are thought to reduce the confusion about what storm is being described.
Names are assigned in order from predetermined
lists once storms have one, three, or ten-minute sustained wind speeds of more than depending on which basin it originates in.
However, standards vary from basin to basin, with some tropical depressions named in the Western Pacific, while tropical cyclones have to have gale-force winds occurring near the center before they are named within the Southern Hemisphere.
Any member of the
World Meteorological Organisation
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics.
The WMO originated from the Interna ...
's hurricane, typhoon and tropical cyclone committees can request that the name of a tropical cyclone be retired or withdrawn from the various
tropical cyclone naming lists.
A name is retired or withdrawn if a consensus or majority of members agree that the tropical cyclone has acquired a special notoriety, such as causing a large number of deaths and amounts of damage, impacts or for other special reasons.
Any tropical cyclone names assigned by the Papua New Guinea National Weather Service are automatically retired regardless of any damage caused.
A replacement name is then submitted to the committee concerned and voted upon, but these names can be rejected and replaced for various reasons.
These reasons include the spelling and pronunciation of the name, its similarity to the name of a recent tropical cyclone or on another list of names, and the length of the name for modern communication channels such as social media.
PAGASA also retires the names of significant tropical cyclones, when they have caused at least in damage and/or have caused at least 300 deaths.
There are no names retired within the North Indian Ocean or the South-West Indian Ocean, as names are only used once in each basin before being replaced.
See also
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European windstorm
European windstorms are powerful extratropical cyclones which form as cyclone, cyclonic windstorms associated with areas of low atmospheric pressure. They can occur throughout the year, but are most frequent between October and March, with peak ...
*
List of historical tropical cyclone names
*
Tropical cyclone naming
Tropical cyclones and subtropical cyclones are named by various warning centers to simplify communication between forecasters and the general public regarding forecasts, watches and warnings. The names are intended to reduce confusion in the ...
*
Winter storm naming in the United States
Winter storm naming in the United States has been used sporadically since the mid-1700s in various ways to describe historical winter storms. These names have been coined using schemes such as the days of the year that the storm impacted or notew ...
References
External links
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Australian Bureau of MeteorologyFiji Meteorological ServiceIndia Meteorological DepartmentIndonesian Meteorological DepartmentJapan Meteorological AgencyMauritius Meteorological ServicesMétéo-France –La ReunionMeteorological Service of New Zealand LimitedUnited States Central Pacific Hurricane CenterUnited States National Hurricane Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tropical Cyclone Naming
Tropical cyclones
Tropical cyclone meteorology
Naming
History
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
fr:Nomenclature des cyclones tropicaux#Historique