Name That Hurricane: The story of how and why we name hurricanes.

From the 1996 Farmers’ Almanac – By, Anne M. Johnson

The natives of the Caribbean were one of the first people to revere hurricanes, known to them as the harbinger of huracan, the evil spirit. They feared them the most between June and November, when the sky was brilliant blue, framed by high cirrus clouds and the weather was fair and tranquil. That was the time that the harbinger of huracan liked to show its powers.

The first hurricane recorded came from the logs of Christopher Columbus, who some say was taught to read the signs of an imminent hurricane by native Indians. On June 29, 1502, Columbus’ fourth and final voyage, he arrived in Santo Domingo seeking shelter from an impending storm. His request was refused, but he asked that the Spanish fleet, which was to set sail for Spain, be delayed because there were signs of a tempest brewing. Seeing the fair and tranquil weather, the Spaniards scoffed and the fleet set out — only to lose all but one ship in the fleet.

Native Indians throughout much of the world had their own names for the catastrophic, cyclonic storms now known as hurricanes. The Mayans called them Hunraken, or storm God; the Galibi Indians of Dutch and French Guiana called them hyoracan, or devil. In Guatemala, the Quiche called their god of thunder and lightning, Hurakan, while other Carib Indians called hurricanes aracan, urican or huiravucan, loosely translated to “big wind,” according to the logs of Columbus.

The English version of “hurricane” is thought to have been derived from the Spanish word huracan, itself a derivation of the names used by Caribbean Indians.

Though storms in general were called by the Indian names for hurricanes, individual storms were not named for several hundred years.

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Spanish monks in Cuba began naming hurricanes for the saint days on which they fell. Hurricane Santa Ana struck Puerto Rico on July 26th, 1825, the day of Santa Ana. When hurricanes hit land on the same saint day years apart, they were tagged first and second, as was the case with hurricane San Felipe the first, which made landfall at Puerto Rico September 13, 1876, and hurricane San Felipe the second, which struck September 13, 1928.

In later years, hurricanes, which most often were reported by ships at sea, were named for their coordinates, their latitude and longitude. This system failed to work because hurricanes are erratic forces of nature that often hit several locations. The same storm might end up with a number of “named” coordinates, thus creating confusion and panic.

Giving nature’s force a human identity is first attributed to George R. Stewart, who wrote Storm, a novel published in 1941. In the novel, he named his hurricane for a woman. This caught the fancy of Air Force and Navy meteorologists, who plotted Pacific storms during World War II. They began giving those storms women’s names.

Meanwhile, in the United States, hurricanes were being named for the phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie, Delta, etc.). But in 1953, when a new international phonetic alphabet was introduced, that system also became confusing. That’s when the National Weather Service began calling hurricanes by women’s names.

For twenty-five years, hurricanes bore the names of women. At the start of each season, which begins May 1 and ends December 1 in the Atlantic, the first hurricane of the season was given a female name starting with the letter “a,” the second, a female name starting with the letter “b” and so on.

The names could be reused after a number of years, if necessary, but famous hurricanes, those that caused widespread damage, were not reused; a practice that continues today.

Some of the more famous ladies during this 25-year period until 1978 were Carol and Hazel, 1954; Janet, 1955; Flora and Ginny, 1963; Cleo, Dora and Hilda, 1964; Betsy, 1965; Camille, 1969; and Agnes, 1972.

The seventies marked the women’s liberation movement and one minor, but thorny issue was the practice of naming hurricanes after women. Beginning with the 1979 hurricane season, the National Weather Service began naming the tropical storms that formed in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico after both men and women.

Today, the list of alternating male and female names are prepared every six years. The greatest number of hurricanes ever to occur in one season has been 21, so the weather service prepares 21 names for each season.

Though many storms will be named, not all will reach full hurricane status — winds of 74 miles per hour or higher. As soon as a storm with rotary circulation reaches wind speeds of 39 miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center in Coral Gables, Florida christens the storm with a name.

— Anne M. Johnson
Jacksonville, Florida