Huge storms are often in the news but have you ever wondered why they have names and how they are decided?
Why do they need names?
Tropical storms like hurricanes, cyclones or typhoons are given names so scientists can keep track of them.
In some places there can be over 100 storms in just 12 months, so names make them much easier for experts to tell them apart.
Who makes the name decisions?
There are regular meetings of weather scientists around the world to decide on new names for the next year.
Names of storms which cause a lot of damage are never used again.
Storms are named in alphabetical order.
The first storm of a year will have an A name, like Hurricane Alice or Typhoon Andrew, the next one gets a B name and so on.
There is a name for each letter of the alphabet – but Q, U, X, Y and Z are not included.
Who decides if they’re named after girls or boys?
Storms take it in turns to have girls’ or boys’ names.
Originally storms were only named after girls. In 1979, men’s names were introduced.
14 Responses
Wow, That was the question I asked on Hurricane Irma hits Caribbean.
my name is andrew and it is on there XD
i did not know that
Amazing
I didn’t know that!
Wowza,that is crazy.I wonder if there is one on mwa name
That was really informative
i never new that
give it a cute name like lily or vilot
That totally answered my query’s.
i cart belive that how they have names that crazy i was thinking it was a diffrent way but it is this way wow it is very cool it is that way
why do really need names
Wow I did not know that
that’s just wow just at the point that people think that well.
Some people are right and some people are wrong i think storms have name because they are like a cyclone or super cyclones.