A tropical storm is called a hurricane when it reaches a wind speed of 119 km per hour.
But these storms get names even when they display a rotating circulation pattern and wind speeds of 63 kms per hour.
For hundreds of years, various approaches have been tried, but nothing has worked as well as the current method.
There was a time when they were named after saints, and then after related objects, e.g., in the 1850s, a storm damaged a boat named Antje, so the hurricane was named Antje Hurricane.
In one instance, when a hurricane hit Florida on Labour day, it was called Labour Day Hurricane.
Realising the randomness of such names, meteorologists began using latitude-longitude coordinates, but this was too confusing.
Finally, in the 1950s, meteorologists decided to identify storms using names from a list that was arranged alphabetically.
Initially, inspired by naval meteorologists, who named storms after their wives, the National American Hurricane Centre used only female names, but it was controversial.
In 1979, men’s names were introduced, and now they alternate with the women’s names.
Also, the list is now maintained and updated by an international committee and not by National America Hurricane Centre.
There are only six lists of names that are used, so the list of 2020 will be used again in 2026.
However, if a particular hurricane was too deadly, its name is deleted permanently at an annual meeting and replaced with one starting with the same alphabet; this is done because people can have bad memories of that hurricane.
Florence (2019), Michael (2019), Irma (2017), Sandy (2012) & Katrina (2005) are a few names that have been deleted permanently.
