Hurricanes - It's A Name Game! | WeatherBug
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Hurricanes - It's A Name Game!

April 4, 2021
By WeatherBug Meteorologist, Andrew Rosenthal
Hurricanes… it’s all in a name – Sandy, Andrew, Katrina, Maria. Giving a storm a name makes it easier to remember the squall’s history and compare it to others in the past. When a storm reaches 40 mph sustained winds, it is gifted with a name. But, what happens when you run out of names?
 
Since 1979, the National Hurricane Center has maintained six lists of 21 names for use in the Atlantic tropical basin. The names run the gamut of the alphabet from “A” through “W”, skipping the letters Q and U, and alternate between male and female names. Likewise, the eastern Pacific also uses six lists of 21 different names operating in the same pattern.
 
So, what happens when there’s more than 21 named storms in a given year? That first became an issue in the eastern Pacific a few years after the modern format was developed. In this case, the last three letters of the alphabet – X, Y and Z – were added to the pattern, although there are only 2 sets of names – Xina, York and Zelda in odd-numbered years; and Xavier, Yolanda and Zeke in even-numbered years.
 
To date, the “X” name has only been used that one time, in 1985. However, there have been several instances in which the eastern Pacific season has flirted with the end of the alphabet before ending quietly. With the formation of Willa this fall, the 2018 season has joined the ranks of those years threatening to require an “X” storm.
 
The Atlantic basin, however, has taken a completely different tack with regard to how to handle this “problem.” After Hurricane Wilma formed in September 2005, the National Hurricane Center was forced to find additional names to complete the season. Unlike their Pacific brethren, they chose to go Greek, making use of the Greek Alphabet (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, etc.).
 
By adding the entirety of the Greek alphabet to the list, the number of named storms could be expanded from 21 to 45 names. Fortunately, even that overactive season “only” made it six letters into the Greek alphabet, with Tropical Storm Zeta the last one of that year.
 
While the 24 names on the Pacific side can all be “retired” should the storm be memorable enough, the Atlantic will only retire those names through the “W” storm. So, while Zoey will never find her name used in the Atlantic basin, there’s hope for all the Zacharys and Xanders, at least in the Pacific.