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The custom of giving names to tropical
cyclones began in Australia in the early 1900's
in order to reduce confusion in communicating
forecasts to the general public. A typically boisterous
Aussie forecaster assigned names of unpopular
political figures to storms so he could refer
to them as "wandering aimlessly around the
Pacific" or "causing great distress
among the populace." The trend caught on
in the states during World War II, as meteorologists
for our armed forces named hurricanes after their
wives or girlfriends, hopefully not for the same
reasons as the earlier Australian. In the early
'50s, we switched to the phonetic alphabet (Able,
Baker, Charlie, etc.) before returning to an all
female revue by decade's end. With the '70s came
the Equal Rights Movement, earning men equal billing
on the storm front. Each of the world's seven
ocean basins follows its own system of identification.
Most still with alternating male/female designations,
but in the Northwest Pacific, a new naming scheme
was adopted in 2000, whereby proper names were
generally replaced with Asian terms for animals,
birds, flowers, and even foods. Meanwhile in the
unimaginative Northern Indian Ocean, tropical
cyclones remain nameless. It's only a matter of
time before the christening of storms becomes
corporate business in America, and we're forced
to listen as forecasters remind us that our season's
best swell arrived courtesy of Hurricane HoJo,
with locations at several major surfing destinations
as well as along evacuation routes from many cities.
The word "Hurricane"
has its own unique origins dating all the way
back to the ancient Mayans. "Hurakan"
was one of their creator gods, responsible for
blowing his breath across chaotic water and bringing
forth dry land. Later, the Carib Indians altered
the term to "Hurican", and he became
their god of everything evil, small wonder considering
the meager defenses of Caribbean islands in the
face of storms to this day. Needless to say, the
University of Miami picked up the name from there,
and Americans -- overwhelmingly impressed by the
college's powerhouse football squad -- offered
the name to the destructive tropical cyclones
wreaking havoc in the Atlantic. Or was it the
other way around?
A hurricane, strictly defined,
is "a strong tropical cyclone or non-frontal
synoptic scale low-pressure system over tropical
or sub-tropical waters with organized convection
and definite cyclonic surface wind circulation."
In other words, a big mother of a spinning storm
in some really warm water. Sustained winds must
remain above 74 m.p.h., or the tempest is demoted
to Tropical Storm status. Unlike your typical
mid-latitude storm with high winds aloft, the
strongest winds in a hurricane blow right here
on the surface.
2001 NAMES
Atlantic - Allison, Barry, Chantal, Dean,
Erin, Felix, Gabrielle, Humberto, Iris, Jerry,
Karen, Lorenzo, Michelle, Noel, Olga, Pablo, Rebekah,
Sebastien, Tanya, Van, Wendy
Pacific - Adolph, Barbara,
Cosme, Dalilia, Erick, Flossie, Gil, Henriette,
Israel, Juliette, Kiko, Lorena, Manuel, Narda,
Octave, Priscilla, Raymond, Sonia, Tico, Velma,
Wallis, Xina, York, Zelda
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