User:Jason Rees/Naming Overview

Before the official naming of tropical cyclones began in each basin, significant tropical cyclones were named after annoying politicians, mythological creatures, saints and place names, or were just simply numbered with a set of code letters before it.

Atlantic tropical cyclone
From 1950 the United States Weather Bureau (USWB), began to assign names to tropical cyclones that were judged to have intensified into tropical storms. Storms were originally named in alphabetical order using the World War II version of the Phonetic Alphabet. In 1953 a new set of 23 women's names were developed, to avoid any confusion as a secondary phonetic alphabet had been developed. After the active but mild 1953 Atlantic hurricane season, public reception to the idea seemed favorable, so the same list was adopted for the next year with only one change; Gilda for Gail. After storms like Carol and Hazel got a lot of publicity during the 1954 season, forecasters developed a new set of names in time for the 1955 season. However before this could happen, a tropical storm developed on January 2 1955 and was named as Alice. The new set of names was developed and were used during 1955 beginning with Brenda and continued through the alphabet to Zelda. For each season before 1960, a new set of names was developed before in 1960 forecasters decided to begin rotating names in a regular sequence and thus four alphabetical lists were established to be repeated every four years. The sets followed the example of the western Pacific typhoon naming lists and excluded names beginning with the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z. These four lists were used until 1972 when National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), replaced them with nine lists designed to be used annually from 1972. In 1977, NOAA decided to relinquish control over the name selection and allow a regional committee of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to select the names. The WMO decided that the names would be used from 1979, with six new lists which contained male names and some Spanish and French names to reflect all the cultures and languages used within the Atlantic Ocean. Since 1979 the same six lists have been used, with names of significant tropical cyclones removed from the lists and replaced with new names. In 2002, subtropical cyclones started to be assigned names from the main list of names set up for that year.

During the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season the seasonal list of names was exhausted, which prompted the NHC to use its contingency plan and name tropical cyclones after letters of the Greek Alphabet. At the following session of the Hurricane Committee in March and April 2006, there was considerable discussion over the usage of the Greek Alphabet as a supplemental list names, with several views expressed about if a letter of the Greek Alphabet could be retired. Members of the committee noted that the usage of the Greek Alphabet had been responsible for a major political, economic and social impact, which it speculated would not have happened if a supplemental list of regular names had been used. As a result, it was unanimously decided that the Greek Alphabet would continue to be used if the seasonal list of names was used up. At the 2010 Interdepartmental Hurricane Conference, NOAA noted that various negative feedback had been received from the general public, media and emergency manager community, about the usage of the Greek Alphabet for naming tropical cyclones in 2005. As a result, it was recommended that the usage of the Greek alphabet when the seasonal naming list was exhausted, should be discontinued and replaced with a secondary naming list that used all of the conventions of the primary list. The conference accepted the recommendation and passed it on to the WMO's Hurricane Committee which rejected the proposal, as it felt that the usage of the Greek Alphabet was not expected to be frequent enough to warrant changing the existing naming procedures. In September 2020, after the seasonal list of names was exhausted, the NHC had to use its contingency plan for the second time and name tropical cyclones after letters of the Greek Alphabet. As the Greek letters were used, it was noted that there were issues with how some of the names were being translated into other languages and how they were pronounced as several of the names were very similar. It was also feared that there could be too much focus on the usage of the alphabet and not the impacts of a system, which it felt could distract from impact and safety messaging. As a result, a proposal was made at the following session of the Hurricane Committee to stop using the Greek Alphabet when the seasonal list of names for either the Eastern Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean was exhausted in a given season. The committee overwhelmingly voted in favour of the proposal, before it devised and approved a supplemental list of names for both basins, that would be used when the primary list of names for a season was exhausted.

Eastern Pacific tropical cyclone
Beginning in 1960, tropical cyclones that were judged by the USWB to have intensified into a tropical storm, with winds of more than 65 km/h (40 mph), started to be assigned female names. The original naming lists were designed to be used year after year in sequence, before early in the 1965 season it was decided to rotate the same lists every four years. In 1977, after protests by various women's rights groups, NOAA made the decision to relinquish control over the name selection by allowing a regional committee of the WMO to select new sets of names. The WMO selected six lists of names which contained male names and rotated every six years. They also decided that the new lists of hurricane name would start to be used in 1978 which was a year earlier than the Atlantic. Since 1978 the same lists of names have been used, with names of significant tropical cyclones removed from the lists and replaced with new names. As in the Atlantic basin should the names preselected for the season be exhausted, the contingency plan of using the Greek alphabet for names would be used. However unlike in the Atlantic basin the contingency plan has never had to be used, although in 1985 to avoid using the contingency plan, the letters X, Y, and Z were added to the lists. Since the contingency plan was used during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, there have been a few attempts to get rid of the Greek names as they are seen to be inconsistent with the standard naming convention used for tropical cyclones and are generally unknown and confusing to the public. However none of the attempts have succeeded and thus the Greek letters will still be used should the lists ever be used up.

Central Pacific tropical cyclone
Beginning in 1950 tropical cyclones that were judged by the Joint Hurricane Warning Center to have intensified into a tropical storm, with winds of more than 65 km/h (40 mph), started to be assigned names. Between 1950 and 1957, tropical storms were given names from the Hawaiian language before in 1957, the decision was made to take names from the Western Pacific list of names. In 1979, Hawaiian names were reinstated for tropical depressions intensifying in tropical storms within the Central Pacific. Five sets of Hawaiian names, using only the 12 letters of the Hawaiian alphabet, were drafted with the intent being to use the sets of names on an annual rotation basis. However as no tropical cyclones had formed in this region between 1979 and 1981, the original lists were scrapped and replaced with four sets of names. Also, the plan of how to allocate the names was changed to allow all the names to be used consecutively. The naming lists were used until 2007 the lists were revised in conjunction with the University of Hawaii with one-third of the names being retired or replaced.

Western Pacific tropical cyclone
In 1945, the United States armed services, publicly adopted a list of names that they would name tropical depressions that intensified into tropical storms within the western Pacific. During the 1959 season the US armed services combined to form the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) who took on responsibility for naming all tropical storms between the 100°E and 180. Initially the lists of names only consisted of female names before in April 1979, the naming lists were revised to include male names. In 1998 the WMO's/ESCAP typhoon committee, decided that the current naming lists were too English and decided that they would control the list of names with the names assigned to tropical storms by the Japan Meteorological Agency instead of the JTWC.

PAGASA tropical cyclone
In 1963 the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration decided to start naming tropical depressions with the names of Filipino women which ended in "ng," when they formed or moved into their area of responsibility. They continued the practice of naming tropical depressions, until the 2001 season when they started to name tropical cyclones with male names and scrapped the requirement for them to end in "ng".

South-West Indian ocean tropical cyclone
Formal naming of tropical cyclones, in the South-West Indian Ocean began during the 1960-61 season, with the first name (Anna) assigned to a zone of disturbed weather during November 1960. Over the years, there have been various selection processes for selecting the names, that will be assigned to tropical/subtropical storms during the season. During the 1980's and 1990's, names were chosen by the national Meteorological Services of the region, in turn for several seasons, with Madagascar's Direction de la Météorologie et de l'Hydrologie, choosing the names at the end of the 1980 and early 1990's while the Seychelles national meteorological service selected the names at the end of the 1990s. Since the start of the 2000-01 season, the names have been selected by the WMO's South West Indian Ocean Tropical Cyclone Committee for a couple of seasons in advance. Until the WMO took over the naming, all off the names selected were female; since then, both men and women names have been used. Unlike other basins; RSMC La Reunion does not name tropical cyclones as they intensify into tropical or subtropical storms. For historic reasons they instead delegate this responsibility to the Mauritius Meteorological Service (MMS) and the Direction de la Météorologie et de l'Hydrologie.

Australian region tropical cyclone
Tropical lows or tropical depressions that intensify into tropical cyclones within the Australian region have been named since the 1963-64 tropical cyclone season. Between 1963-64 and 1974-75, female names were used exclusively by the warning centers, before the current convention of alternating male and female names began at the start of the 1975-76 cyclone season.

Southern Pacific tropical cyclone
Tropical depressions developing into tropical cyclones have only been officially named since 1964, however historic records show that names have been assigned to developing tropical cyclones since the start of the 1955-56 season. Female names were used exclusively until the start of 1974-75, when the current convention of alternating male and female names began. Names are developed by a regional committee of the WMO and are assigned, by the Fiji Meteorological Service and the Meteorological Service of New Zealand Limited.

The Weather Channel
During Halloween 2011, a nor'easter impacted the northeastern United States and was nicknamed "Snowtober" by various media outlets and on social media, which prompted The Weather Channel (TWC) to put the nickname on air where it took off. As a result, the commercial weather service started to informally investigate naming winter storms and realised that Twitter needed a hashtag for every system so that information could be filtered. During October 2012, TWC announced that 3 of their senior meteorologists would start proactively naming noteworthy winter storms, using names from a predetermined list of 26 Roman and Greek names. TWC argued that the naming scheme would raise awareness, make communications and information sharing easier, which in turn would make it easier for people to understand forecasts, lead to better planning, preparedness and result in less impact overall. The initial reaction to TWC's naming scheme was mixed as most people did not have a problem with it, while others were not happy that TWC had not consulted the rest of the meteorological community on the initiative and called it self-serving and not in the interest of effective weather communication. After considering TWC's press release and various other factors, the founder and president of the commercial weather service Accuweather, Dr. Joel N. Myers, suggested that TWC had "confused media spin with science and public safety." He also stated that Accuweather had explored the issue for 20 years and had concluded that it "was not good science" and would "mislead the public" and noted that "winter storms were very different from hurricanes". At the time the NWS made no comment about the naming system but noted that they did not name winter storms.

After TWC named its first system in November 2012, the NWS Eastern Region headquarters reminded its forecast offices that it didn't name Winter Storms, however, the NWS Weather Forecast Office in Buffalo, New York unofficially named six systems after the fact during the winter of 2012-13. After reading a headline entitled "Brutus expected to bury Bozeman" students at the Bozeman High School in Montana reached out to TWC and provided them with four years worth of classical Latin and Greek names as they wanted to raise awareness of the language. During the season, TWC did not use any quantitative method to name the systems and started to use the names provided by the Bozeman high school after it had exhausted the list of names that it had preselected. After the season had ended, TWC reviewed the systems it had assigned a name to and felt that 90% of the systems deserved to be named, based on the impacts they had on a regional/national basis. They also determined that the project had been a success after over a billion impressions were recorded on Twitter and numerous schools, agencies and media outlets had started to use it. As a result, they decided to use the named storms of 2012-13 as a benchmark and developed a quantitative method for deciding when to name future storms, which they entitled the Integrated Meteorological Population and Area Calculation Tool (IMPACT). This tool allowed TWC to calculate the population and area that is forecast to be impacted by a winter storm, based on thresholds set by the NWS for winter weather warnings and advisories.

As a result, they decided that they would name a storm during the 2013-14 season if it was forecast to impact over 10 million people or 1000000 km2, however, it was noted that the storm naming committee could override the guidance in certain circumstances. Over the next few years, TWC continued to develop the science behind their naming scheme and collaborated with the Latin class at Bozeman High School to release a new set of 26 names each year. Ahead of the winter of 2015-16, the United Kingdom's Met Office and the Irish Met Éireann announced that they would start naming winter storms, in order to take control and inject authority into a messy situation where the media was using a variety of names for weather events.