Hurricane Names: 21 names are on an annual list

Since 1953 the U.S. National Hurricane Centre has started to give Atlantic tropical storms, or Hurricanes names. This list of names is now maintained by the World Meteorological Organization, hurricanes were only named after women but that changed in 1979 as men’s names were then used.

The reason for using Christian names because it was thought that using latitude-longitude co-ordinates is far less confusing for warning people. There are always names on a list that are used for these hurricanes, the list of Hurricane names for 2007 are Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dean, Erin, Felix, Gabrielle, Humberto, Ingrid, Jerry, Karen, Lorenzo, Melissa, Noel, and Olga.
There are always 21 names that are used on the annual list, however If more than 21 named storms form over the Atlantic, then another names are will be taken from the Greek Alphabet.

For the list of hurricane names for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 visit: www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml

For a list of retired hurricane names visit: www.nhc.noaa.gov/retirednames.shtml