In the News: Hurricane Names (Girls)

This week Hurricane Earl threatens the Eastern U.S. shore with 160mph winds. According to the Atlantic Tropical Weather Center, the naming history of hurricanes is as follows:

 Atlantic tropical cyclones were named with the old World War II phonetic alphabet during the years 1950-1952.  Women's names were first used in 1953, and the same list (with one change) was used in 1954.  However, after the major East Coast storms of that year, forecasters decided to use new names each year for awhile.  Then beginning in 1960, four semi-permanent sets were established, to be re-cycled after four years.  This list was expanded to ten sets in 1971, but before making it through the list even once, these sets were replaced by the now familiar sets of mens' and womens' names.   In the Atlantic, male names were first used in 1979, and the sets are repeated every six years.

Through researching names for this post, we also learned that hurricane names are retired when the storm is destructive and/or significant enough. Here are some names from the database that we like:

We found that most of the names we liked were female, though Dennis and George did catch our attention from the male side.

• Abby
• Alice
• Audrey
• Betsey
• Betty
• Caroline
• Emmy
• Flora
• Gabrielle
• Grace
• Hannah
• Isabel