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posted by martyb on Wednesday September 29 2021, @12:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the what's-in-a-name? dept.

We’re about to run out of Atlantic hurricane names:

It has been another record-setting hurricane season in the Atlantic basin, with a total of 19 named storms so far. It has been so busy that, with still more than two months to go until the season's end, the National Hurricane Season is probably going to run out of names for the second year in a row.

Currently in the Atlantic, Hurricane Sam is rampaging across open waters. Fortunately this major hurricane is unlikely to threaten any landmasses. Behind Sam, it's possible that Victor and Wanda will form during the next few days. Neither of these storms, either, poses any immediate threat to land.

If they do form, these two storms would exhaust the allotment of "official" names the National Hurricane Season uses for tropical storms and hurricanes. (Because the letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z are not commonly used for names, they don't appear on the list of Atlantic names). In years past, the Miami-based hurricane center would then start assigning Greek letters for excess named storms.

[...] And so after last season, the World Meteorological Organization—which is designated by the United Nations to handle weather issues—decided to create a supplemental list of names in lieu of the Greek alphabet. These storm names, beginning with Adria, Braylen, and Caridad, will come into play this year if more than two named storms form during the remainder of 2021. This seems likely given that about 25 percent of activity during any given Atlantic season occurs after October 1. One particular area of concern next month is the Western Caribbean Sea, which has sea surface temperatures several degrees above normal.


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 30 2021, @02:09AM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 30 2021, @02:09AM (#1183007) Journal

    Traditional Chinese, maybe? How many "letters" do they have in their old alphabet?

    Better yet, we could establish a beginning year, and switch off between alphabets. We've used English already this year, so we move on to Russian and use all their letters, then Japanese, and on and on it goes. Probably won't get back to the English/Latin alphabet this decade.

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  • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday September 30 2021, @07:41PM

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 30 2021, @07:41PM (#1183169) Homepage Journal

    Some Russian letters have the same names as different-looking English letters.
    But Russian napes of people would do.
    Lots of Westerners won't know how to pronounce them.
    Let them be confused.