Why do meteorologists give human names to hurricanes?

Question

Please Please Help!!! ♥♥

also...

A: How do they usually name them?

B: What names/letters will NEVER be used for hurricanes?

C: When are hurricane names retired?

best answer will get BEST ANSWER!!

thanks in advance everyone!

Answer 1

Meteorologists began to give names to hurricanes (tropical storms, tropical cyclones, cyclones, typhoons, hurricanes, etc.) because these phenomona are large, destructive, don't happen every day, but have significant impacts on people.  It's much easier for meteorologits, historians, and insurance companies to refer to a storm by a simple name (like "Hurricane Katrina"), rather than "the Atlantic Basin  Hurricane of August 23-30, 2005 that flooded New Orleans".  It's also easier to warn the public using a named storm than an unnamed one.  People react more to "Tropical Storm Joe is heading for Pensacola" than they do to "A Tropical Storm in the Gulf is Headed for Florida".

The first storm with a name was a typhoon near Australia in the 1940s.  In 1950, hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean started to be named.  At first they gave them names from the military's phonetic alphabet ("Able", "Baker","Charlie", "Dog", etc.... yes there was a "Hurricane Dog" once), but this wasn't useful for some reason, and so they switched to human names.  It's believed the reason women's names were used at first is because the meteorologists named the storms after their wives and girlfriends (in the 1950s, most women still didn't work, so almost all meteorologists were men).  However, since 1979 hurricane names are chosen from both male and female names, and are culturally relevant to the area they affect (Asian names for typhoons in the western Pacific; English, Spanish, and French names in the Atlantic where there are English, Spanish, and French-speaking peoples).

(A)  Storms are given names from pre-determined lists.  These lists are compiled by the World Meteorological Organization.  There are separate lists for different areas where storms form.  In some areas they start with "A" every year, and change lists every year, eventually returning to the first list and re-using the names.  In other areas, they use the names consecutively, so if one year ends at "K", the next year starts at "L" etc.

(B)  Although in the Atlantic region not all letters are used, all the letters of the alphabet are used somewhere in the world.  In the Phillipine region, they use 25 letters (no X), but in the East Pacific region, they use 24 letters (no Q or U).  So, you can find all 26 letters in just those two regions of the Pacific Ocean.

(C)  A hurricane name is retired when the World Meteorological Organization has its annual meeting and decides to retire a name.  A name is retired when it is is used for a storm that becomes notorious in some way.  This is usually when a storm causes either a significant number of deaths, a significant amount of damage, a large number of insurance claims that cannot be settled before the next possible time the name would be used again, or some combination of any of these reasons.  If a name is retired, it is replaced by a new name of the same letter, same gender, and same culture.  For example, "Monique" (M, French, female) could be replaced by "Marie" (M, French, female), but not "Melissa" (English) or "Martin" (male) or "Natalie" (not an M name).

Answer 2

What other kinds of names are there?  I guess because there are lots of em.

I think all names and letters are up for grabs.  *excepting ones applicable to answer c*

I think class 5 hurricane names are retires or ones that cause significant loss of life.

Answer 3

and there named mostly after ladys and you know about ladys they can be no joke

Answer 4

i remember some of this info in my Violent Weather class. the only thing i remember is that they have a list of names to give hurricanes and they alternate between male and female names. that's all i can remember.

Answer 5

Meteorologists and other scientists give human names so that these hurricanes can be remembered. Assigning letters and/or numbers is boring.

They usually name them in alphabetical order. If all used letters of the alphabet are depleted, then the greek alphabet is used. Alpha, beta, gamma, etc.

Names that are retired are never used again for one. Also, I don't anything that starts with an 'X' is used.

Hurricane names are retired when they are very destructive. I would also imagine that a name would be retired if it made a new record.

Answer 6

Because they name the 1st time in the very 1st hurricane season. They name them of what type of hurricane.

Answer 7

basically all the questions ur askin r on my science hw paper && thats pretty smart,.