Names of Atlantic Hurricanes

The practice of giving the names of persons to severe storms apparently began in Australia in the 19th century, when Clement L. Wragge gave Biblical names to eastern Pacific hurricanes. It is said that during World War II, U.S. Army meteorologists began to name hurricanes using women's names, but we have not been able to find these names.  In the early 1950's, the storms were named in alphabetical order using the military phonetic code for the letters of the alphabet. In 1953 the code was replaced by an alphabetical list of women's names. By 1963 the U. S. National Weather Service had adopted an annual alphabetical list of women's names.  Major changes were made in 1979:

• names were alternately male and female
• 6 lists were prepared to be used in rotation, one list per year, so the same names recur every six years (but see below)
• the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) took charge.

Names are English, Spanish or French, and names beginning with "Q", "U", "X", "Y" or “Z” are not used.

Any nation affected by a devastating hurricane can ask the WMO to retire the name of that hurricane. A retired name cannot be used for at least ten years. Retiring the name spares the feelings of persons affected by the storm and avoids confusion in legal claims, insurance, historical references, and so on. In the chart below names that have been retired for this reason are shown in pink.

From time to time names that were not those of a severe storm have been retired.

Most users will have to scroll right to see the whole chart. Our apologies.

Notes

1. The second hurricane in 1973, following Alice, was named Delta.

2. A second set of names was used concurrently in 1972: Alpha, Charlie, Delta.

Resources

An alphabetical list of retired names can be found at www.nhc.noaa.gov/retired names.shtml

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Last revised: 7 January 2008.