What's in a name? Really?

Last week, the entire nation was hooked on reading and watching updates about Hurricane Sandy which devastated portions of the Caribbean, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern USA. A few years ago, it was Hurricane Katrina and then it was Tropical Storm Irene. Apart from the fact that all these natural disasters have wrecked thousands of lives across the world, they have another common criteria; their name!

After Hurricane Sandy was named ‘Sandy’, jokes spread that these natural disasters had to be named after a Female as only a woman could create so much havoc. But the reason for these naming’s goes back to the 50’s when the Second World War military meteorologists working in the Pacific began to use women’s names for storms. The use of everyday, easy women names made it easier to remember and communicate and that’s why in 1953, it was adopted by the National Hurricane Center for use of storms originating in the Atlantic Ocean. In 1978, the meteorologists watching storm in the Eastern North Pacific began using men’s names for storms. The Center maintains six lists of names which are reused every six years.

When a Hurricane causes too much destruction, the name is retired from the list which will not be used again. Like a Hurricane will never be named ‘Katrina’ again. There are separate naming systems for the storms of Eastern North Pacific, Central Pacific, Australian region, Fiji Region, Papua New Guinea Region, Northern Indian Ocean and Southwest Indian Ocean.