Forecasters worldwide use short, distinctive names to describe tropical storms and hurricanes. The National Hurricane Center says the practice of naming storms is especially important when exchanging detailed weather information among hundreds of widely scattered weather stations, coastal bases and ships at sea.
Since 1953, Atlantic tropical storms had been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane Center. The lists are used in rotation and re-cycled every six years (i.e., the 2021 list will be used again in 2027).
The only time a list changes is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name for a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity. Several storm names have been retired since the lists were created.
Last year’s storm season was so active, the Greek alphabet was used when listed names were exhausted. But that’s no longer the plan (see page 20). If more than 21 named tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin in a season, any additional storms will take names from an alternate list approved for each basin.
HURRICANE NAMES FOR 2021
Ana | Bill | Claudette | Danny | Elsa | Fred | Grace | Henri | Ida | Julian | Kate | Larry | Mindy | Nicholas | Odette | Peter | Rose | Sam | Teresa | Victor | Wanda
