Tropical Cyclone Naming

The practice of naming storms (tropical cyclones) began years ago in order to help in the quick identification of storms in warning messages because names are presumed to be far easier to remember than numbers and technical terms. Many agree that appending names to storms makes it easier for the media to report on tropical cyclones, heightens interest in warnings and increases community preparedness.

Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive given names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods. These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea.

In the beginning, storms were named arbitrarily. An Atlantic storm that ripped off the mast of a boat named Antje became known as Antje's hurricane. Then the mid-1900's saw the start of the practice of using feminine names for storms.

In the pursuit of a more organized and efficient naming system, meteorologists later decided to identify storms using names from a list arranged alpabetically. Thus, a storm with a name which begins with A, like Anne, would be the first storm to occur in the year. Before the end of the 1900's, forecasters started using male names for those forming in the Southern Hemisphere.

Since 1953, Atlantic tropical storms have been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane Center. They are now maintained and updated by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization. The original name lists featured only women's names. In 1979, men's names were introduced and they alternate with the women's names. Six lists are used in rotation. Thus, the 2019 list will be used again in 2025.

The only time that there is a change in the list is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity. If that occurs, then at an annual meeting by the WMO Tropical Cyclone Committees (called primarily to discuss many other issues) the offending name is stricken from the list and another name is selected to replace it. Infamous storm names such as Mangkhut (Philippines, 2018), Irma and Maria (Caribbean, 2017), Haiyan (Philippines, 2013), Sandy (USA, 2012), Katrina (USA, 2005), Mitch (Honduras, 1998) and Tracy (Darwin, 1974) are examples for this.

There is a strict procedure to determine a list of tropical cyclone names in an ocean basin(s) by the Tropical Cyclone Regional Body responsible for that basin(s) at its annual/biennial meeting. There are five tropical cyclone regional bodies, i.e. ESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee, WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones, RA I Tropical Cyclone Committee, RA IV Hurricane Committee, and RA V Tropical Cyclone Committee. For instance, Hurricane Committee determines a pre-designated list of hurricane names for six years separately at its annual session. The pre-designated list of hurricane names are proposed by its members that include National Meteorological and Hydrological Services in the North/Central America and the Caribbean. Naming procedures in other regions are almost the same as in the Caribbean. In general, tropical cyclones are named according to the rules at a regional level.

It is important to note that tropical cyclones/hurricanes are named neither after any particular person, nor with any preference in alphabetical sequence. The tropical cyclone/hurricane names selected are those that are familiar to the people in each region. Obviously, the main purpose of naming a tropical cyclone/hurricane is basically for people easily to understand and remember the tropical cyclone/hurricane in a region, thus to facilitate tropical cyclone/hurricane disaster risk awareness, preparedness, management and reduction.

The six lists are used in rotation and the 2019 list will be used again in 2025.

The six lists are used in rotation and the 2019 list will be used again in 2025.

The names are used one after the other. When the bottom of one list is reached, the next name is the top of the next list. 

The list of names to be used in the South‑West Indian Ocean area for identifying tropical (or subtropical) storms that will develop during the next seasons within the area bounded by Equator to 40°S west of 90°E to the east coast of Africa, has been validated by the Tropical Cyclone Committee (TCC) at its last session. The three lists of names shown hereafter will serve as the reference and basis to establish the future lists, just rotating them forward and changing the names having been used operationally during the corresponding ended cyclone seasons, replacing them by new names provided by the Members (and never used before) at the next TCC session.

The name is chosen, following alphabetical order, from a predefined list of names validated for the basin and for the cyclone season of reference (starting each season with the name with the initial letter “A”), except when a tropical system already named in the South-East Indian Ocean (east of 90° E) shifts to the South-West Indian Ocean. In this case the original name is kept unchanged.