Who Names Hurricanes?

9/10/2018 (Permalink)

From 1950-1952, hurricanes of the North Atlantic Ocean were identified by the phonetic (A, B, C, etc.) alphabet.  In 1953, the US Weather Bureau switched to women's names.  The naming rights now go by the World Meteorological Organization, which uses different sets of names depending on the part of the world the storm is in.  Around the United States, only women's names were used until 1979.  It was then decided that they should alternate a list that included men's names too.  There are 6 different name lists that alternate each year.  If a hurricane does significant damage, it's name is retired and replaced with another one.  Here are the names that will be used to identify the hurricanes for 2018:

Alberto

Beryl

Chris

Debby

Ernesto

Florence

Gordon

Helene

Isaac

Joyce

Kirk

Leslie

Michael

Nadine

Oscar

Patty

Rafael

Sara

Tony

Valerie

William