![]() This led to a system of female names starting in 1953. Published in 1941, it tells of a weatherman who names storms after women.Īs public interest in hurricanes increased in the early 1950s, officials of the Air Force, Navy and Weather Bureau met to try and develop a new naming system. The use of women’s names for hurricanes in recent years may stem from the book ″Storm,″ by George R. Nicknames such as ″Big Jack″ or ″Dopey″ were common, but, ″It was strictly informal, believe me,″ said Forrester. Forrester, who was a Marine Corps weatherman in that era. Other armed forces weathermen began applying nicknames to particular storms of all types they were tracking, explained the late Frank H. Often the male names were those of politicians that Wragge did not care for, and one of his earliest weather maps includes a storm called ″Hackenbush,″ reports Ivan Ray Tannehill in his book, ″The Hurricane Hunters.″ĭuring World War II military meteorologists found themselves busy tracking hurricanes, and to avoid confusion named them using the phonetic alphabet - Able, Baker, Charlie and so on. He chose the names of females for tropical storms, the type we call hurricanes, and he used male names for other types of storms. ″Inclement″ Wragge was a well-known lecturer on the weather who began naming storms to help explain them to the public. But that can be confusing to the public, especially when there are two or even three storms at the same time.Ĭlement Wragge, an Australian meteorlogist active way back around the turn of the century, may be have helped initiate the current system. Using saints names, taken from the day a storm struck, was a common practice for several hundred years, particularly in regions that have a strong Spanish influence.Ī storm which struck Puerto Rico on July 26, 1825, for example, became known as the Santa Ana storm.įor meteorologists, a simple system of latitude and longitude coordinates is used to locate storms. Naming these storms is a practice of long-standing, yet the current system has been common only since World War II, and it was modified about a decade ago to include male names.
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