National Hurricane Center explains storm-naming tradition
'Back then, it was mainly named off when a storm affected an area or particular city that it may have affected,' Robbie Berg, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Hurricane Center, said. 'So, for example, we had the Labor Day hurricane in 1935, which affected the northeastern United States, and it happened to be on Labor Day'
It wasn't until World War II that the military began naming hurricanes and tropical storms based on the phonetic alphabet.
'The phonetic alphabet, which is what they use in military speak, so Abel, Baker, Charlie. And then after World War II, it was about the 1950s when they started naming storms based off of female names. And then eventually by 1979, is when male names were added,' Berg said.
Short, distinctive names that can be easily written and spoken for quicker communication are subject to less error. This is especially true when two or more tropical storms occur at the same time.
'So, we have six different lists. After we get through six years, we repeat that same or those same six lists over and over and over again,' Berg said. 'So, there are many names on the lists that have been repeated and used multiple times through history. It's just that many of those storms didn't actually do a whole lot of damage, didn't affect anybody, so people don't remember them.'
Those storms that are remembered that were so deadly or costly are retired.
'The World Meteorological Organization, who maintains these lists, decides that we are going to retire that name just because it's so memorable and replace it with a new name,' Berg said. 'So, it gets replaced in that six-year rotation and when it's retired and renamed, it'll be six years before it gets used for the first time.'
Every spring, all the membered nation's get together to discuss the prior hurricane season and vote on potential retired names. From the 2024 Atlantic Basin, Beryl, Helene, and Milton are all names that have been retired and replaced.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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