Why hurricanes are called by human names. Female deceit: why scientists named hurricanes after their mother-in-law

Natural elements are not subject to human control. And when alarming messages come from this or that part of the globe about a tornado, typhoon, hurricane, and we hear beautiful names that have nothing to do with the nature of the origin of the natural disaster. Have you ever wondered why hurricanes are called by female names? This tradition has a rationale that we have to learn today.

Arbitrary naming of hurricanes

In order to avoid informative confusion about hurricanes (which can occur simultaneously in different parts of the planet), it was customary to call them not by the serial number hurricane 544, hurricane 545, and so on, but they were given names.

The earliest names came from the location of the disaster, or from specific dates or events when it happened. For example, in July 1825, they first spoke of Hurricane Santa Anna, which was named after a saint in Puerto Rico. It was on the day when the raging anticyclone erupted that the saint was honored in the city, there was her holiday, her calendar day.

The hurricane was christened by a woman's name. Do you think that then the countdown began with this particular coordinate system? Since that time, the tradition has gone on to give arbitrary names to tornadoes, typhoons and hurricanes, without a clear system or belonging to anything.

Interesting facts about typhoon naming

An interesting fact in the name of the element: at that time there was a hurricane, which very much resembled a pin in its shape. This is where his name comes from. Thus, several similar pinned natural disasters got their names, with serial numbers assigned in the appendix.

Another interesting technique that an Australian meteorologist developed: he named hurricanes after the names of politicians who voted against funding for meteorological research.

There is a peculiarity in the nature of the manifestations of these natural disasters. Or rather: they have their own pattern. Most often, tropical typhoons occur in the autumn, when there is a temperature difference between water and air. And also in summer, when the ocean temperature is at its highest. In winter and spring, they hardly form, or are extremely rare.

Why are hurricanes in America called by female names?

Perhaps, here lies the first system of naming typhoons with beautiful names belonging to the beautiful half of humanity. Military officials in the United States, who served in meteorological units, have taken it into the tradition to name the uncontrollable elements of the names of their spouses and their female relatives. It was during this period that a list of names was compiled for the first time, which were assigned to tornadoes in alphabetical order. Names with easy-to-remember pronunciation were chosen. When the list ended, it started again.

Such a simple story why hurricanes are given female names. It formed the basis of a new system, which began to be used not only in the United States, but also in many other countries.

The emergence of systematization of tornado names

Everyone knows that the continents of North and South America are more affected by floods, typhoons and tornadoes than the rest of the world. There are even more than a dozen American films dedicated to this natural phenomenon.

Since 1953, thanks to the idea of ​​American employees, there has been a procedure for naming an uncontrollable element. Remembering their women, perhaps in their honor or as a joke, but nevertheless, this was the reason why hurricanes are given female names. The list, which was made up of 84 names, was used in full throughout the year. After all, about 120 air cyclones are formed on our planet every year.

The first month of the year corresponds to names for the first letter of the alphabet, the second for the second, and so on. 1979 saw a new phase in the naming system for tornadoes. The list of female names was supplemented with male names. It is worth noting that several tropical storms can form in one water basin at once, which means that there will also be several names. For example, for the Atlantic Ocean, there are 6 alphabetical lists, each of which contains twenty-one names. If it happens that this year there are more hurricanes than twenty-one, then the subsequent names of the elements will go in the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Beta, Delta, etc.).

When are male names used?

As we have already found out, several tornadoes can simultaneously form in one section of the water basin.

But why do hurricanes have female and male names? After all, it would seem that everything is simple - it is enough to add other simple but sonorous names of the fair sex to the list. The fact is that the lists are formed by the Regional Association's Hurricane Committee, which has concluded that gender is not ethical for naming hurricanes. Therefore, since 1979, not only female, but also male names have become part of the list of future hurricanes.

Eastern adherence to naming names

The Japanese do not understand why hurricanes are called by female names. In their opinion, a woman is a gentle and fragile creature. And by its very nature, it is unable to bear catastrophic disasters. Therefore, tornadoes that occur in the North or West Pacific Ocean will never be named after people. Despite the tradition of naming storms, the names of inanimate objects are inherent in them: plants, trees, products, there are also names of animals.

Who forms the names of tornadoes?

As already noted, when forming a list of future tornadoes, attention is paid to simple and sonorous names. This criterion is important. Since when exchanging information about a storm between stations, naval bases in bad weather conditions, cumbersome and complex names are inappropriate. Plus, in both writing and speaking, easy-to-speak words are less prone to errors and confusion. Indeed, several tornadoes can occur simultaneously, moving in different directions along the same coast.

This is why hurricanes are called simple and easy-to-pronounce female names.

There is one that is responsible for naming tornadoes, typhoons, tornadoes, hurricanes and tropical storms. They have been using the established system since 1953. Using names from past lists that were not previously used, new lists are formed for each year. For example, the names that were not used in 2005 are transferred to 2011, and the rest from 2011 to 2017. Thus, for every 6 years ahead, lists of future typhoons are formed.

By 2017, a new list has been formed, consisting of 6 lists of names of hurricanes that await our planet. This list is planned until 2022. Each list begins with the letter A and then alphabetically. Each list contains twenty-one names.

Names beginning with Q, U, X, Y, Z cannot become future names. Since there are few of them and they are difficult to auditory perception.

However, some tornadoes are so destructive in their power that his name is excluded from the list once and for all. An example is Hurricane Katrina, which swept across the southeastern coasts of North America and the Caribbean. This is the most destructive typhoon in the history of the United States, the consequences of which were simply disastrous. And this is the case when the name was dropped from the list of hurricane names. So that the memories of the elements are not painful when it comes to this designation again.

Opinion of ordinary people about the names of tornadoes

Not everyone knows why hurricanes are called by female names. There is an anecdote on this topic literally in one line. The answer is immediately clear: “Hurricanes are called by female names because they are just as violent. And when they leave, they take with them your house, car and everything that you have left. "

Hurricanes, tornadoes, storms, typhoons, cyclones- these are natural phenomena of the same order, similar in their characteristics. Hurricane-like storms in the Atlantic Ocean are called hurricanes, in the Pacific Ocean - typhoons, in the Indian Ocean - cyclones.

Hurricane Is a wind that spins in several spirals at high speed.

If someone falls into the epicenter of a hurricane, they will first feel a strong wind, then a heavy rain. When the epicenter of the hurricane shifts, the weather will be calm and clear skies. After some time, heavy rain will pour down again and a strong wind will blow. Only the wind will blow in the opposite direction.

Storm- very strong wind, as well as a lot of rough seas.

Tornado (tornado)- an atmospheric vortex that occurs in a thundercloud and spreads down, often to the very surface of the earth, in the form of a cloud sleeve or trunk tens and hundreds of meters in diameter. This is a wind of great strength. Tornadoes (tornadoes) most often occur in North America, up to 200 annually. Tornadoes destroy houses and engineering structures. The tornado can travel at a speed of 100 km / h.

Hurricane Irma continues its devastating journey to Florida. Hurricane Jose is gaining strength in the Atlantic. And hurricane Katya originates in the Gulf of Mexico. Irma, Jose, Katya? How are these energetic forces of nature given names to hurricanes?

Hurricanes are assigned names for public safety reasons, said Claire Nullis, a spokeswoman for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It has become easier in the media to publicize a storm and increase interest in warnings when a storm has a name, according to WMO.

Why was the hurricane named Irma?

Hurricane Irma gets its name because it follows Harvey on a predefined list set by WMO for hurricanes that occur in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the North Atlantic Ocean.

Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive names like Irma in writing and colloquial speech is faster and less error prone than older, more cumbersome methods for identifying latitude longitude. These benefits are especially important for sharing storm details between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases and ships at sea.
The use of easy-to-remember names greatly reduces confusion when two or more tropical storms occur at the same time. For example, one hurricane may move slowly westward in the Gulf of Mexico, while another hurricane may move rapidly northward along the Atlantic coast. In the past, confusion and false rumors arose when storm warnings broadcast from radio stations were mistaken for warnings of a completely different storm hundreds of miles away.

Where do all these names come from, and what name will come next? You probably already know that hurricane names are alphabetical throughout the season, but they are more structured.

The World Meteorological Organization, which is responsible for naming hurricanes and tropical storms, has six lists that they go through. (In other words, they are currently using non-serving names, which were also used in both 2011 and 2005). They have been using this system since 1953.

Hurricane names list

List of hurricane names, for 2017 and subsequent years

What are the names of hurricanes

Hurricane names are already planned for six years ahead, including 21 years. But while the names are more or less alphabetical, don't hold your breath for Hurricanes Quinn or Umberto - there aren't any names on the list that start with Q, U, X, Y, or Z because there aren't enough of them that start with those letters, according to Nullis. ...

In the unlikely event that there are more hurricanes per year than predefined names, hurricanes in this region of the world are named after the Greek letters: alpha, beta, gamma, etc., Storms were named Alpha-Alpha-Alpha several times: in 1972, 1973 and again in 2005, although the last storm that blew up Haiti and the Dominican Republic with heavy rain was overshadowed by the devastating effects of Hurricane Wilma.

Hurricane names are removed at the request of the country's representative at the annual meetings of a WMO committee called the Regional Association's Hurricane Committee. This is done when the storm was so devastating that future use of the hurricane's name is considered unethical, according to Nullis. Katrina, Sandy and Ike - the exceptionally catastrophic Atlantic hurricanes that have affected the United States - have been cut from the list (below).

Hurricanes names

Names of hurricanes and typhoons

But the process of naming Atlantic hurricanes hasn't always been this neat.

Beginning in 1950, storms in the region were named after the Combined Army / Navy phonetic alphabet - Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog - when the convention changed to use female names instead, according to Patrick Fitzpatrick, professor of meteorology at the University of Mississippi and author of Hurricanes: A Reference Guide (ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2006). In the interest of gender equality, male names were added in 1979, according to Nullis.

Officially, the storms aren't named after specific people, but that doesn't stop people from getting upset about sharing their name with a massive storm, Nullis said.

She recalled last year's complaint from a man named Matthew who was unhappy with sharing his name with the 2016 storm that wreaked havoc in Haiti. On another occasion, someone said the names weren't "tough" enough.

Others have different ideas on how to name hurricanes, including those suggesting they be named after sci-fi characters and others who suggest their own names, Nullis said.

There are more vengeful people who want to stamp their personal grievances on natural disasters.

“We had a lady who asked us to name the hurricane after her ex-husband,” Nullis said.

As for Irma, this is the first year that the name was used for a hurricane. Irma took the place of Irina, a name that was removed from rotation at the request of the United States in 2012. Whether the names of recent hurricanes Irma or Harvey are removed is a decision to be made by the Hurricane Regional Association Committee at its next meeting in France in 2020.

The average European has most likely heard about a tornado, hurricane, or tropical storm only on TV in news feeds. It just so happened that at present, these destructive natural elements fall only on certain territories of the globe, whose inhabitants suffer greatly from such "whims" of nature.

Surely, many people still have fresh memories of the consequences of the terrible hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans (USA) at the end of August 2005. As a result of the raging disaster, 80% of the city was flooded, 1,836 local residents were killed, the economic damage was estimated at $ 125 billion. It was the most destructive hurricane in modern US history, and the sixth strongest in the Atlantic Basin on record.

Probably, few people think about why, in fact, scientists assign female names to such natural elements? It wasn't always like this.

Indeed, if we turn to modern history, then initially there was no systematization in the naming of hurricanes. Often, hurricanes were called by the name of a saint, depending on what day the disaster occurred, or according to the area in which the natural element played out. In some cases, the name was determined by the shape of the hurricane. Another original method was devised by Australian meteorologist Clement Rugg: he named typhoons after members of parliament who refused to vote for meteorological research loans.

During World War II, American specialists monitored typhoons in the Northwest Pacific, and to avoid confusion, meteorologists began to call typhoons after their wives or mother-in-law. After the end of the war, the US National Meteorological Service compiled an official list of short, simple and easy-to-remember female names. So in the middle of the last century, the first system in the names of hurricanes appeared. The idea stuck, and later this practice was extended to the Pacific typhoons, storms in the Indian Ocean, the Timor Sea and the northwest coast of Australia. Over time, the very procedure for naming hurricanes has been streamlined. The first hurricane of the year got a name starting with the first letter of the alphabet, the second with the second, and so on. For typhoons, a list of 84 female names was compiled, in 1979 this list was expanded and supplemented by male names. In the event that the element was very destructive, like "Katrina", the name assigned to her is forever deleted from the list and replaced by another.

But the Japanese categorically refused to assign female names to hurricanes, because they consider women to be gentle and quiet creatures. In the northwestern Pacific, typhoons are named after animals, flowers, trees, and even foods, while tropical cyclones in the northern Indian Ocean remain unnamed.

Hundreds of tornadoes, typhoons, tornadoes and hurricanes sweep the planet every year. And on television or radio, we often come across disturbing messages telling that the elements are raging somewhere on the planet. Hurricanes and typhoons are always referred to by reporters by female names. Where did this tradition come from? We will try to figure it out.

It is customary to give names to hurricanes. This is done in order not to confuse them, especially when several tropical cyclones operate in the same area of ​​the world, so that there are no misunderstandings in weather forecasting, in the issuance of storm alerts and warnings.

Before the first system of naming hurricanes, hurricanes got their names randomly and haphazardly. Sometimes the hurricane was named after the saint, on the day of which the disaster occurred. For example, hurricane Santa Anna got its name, which reached the city of Puerto Rico on July 26, 1825, on the day of St. Anna. The name could be given for the area that suffered from the elements the most. Sometimes the name was determined by the very form of the development of the hurricane. So, for example, hurricane "Pin" No. 4 got its name in 1935, the shape of the trajectory of which resembled the aforementioned object.

There is an original method of naming hurricanes, invented by Australian meteorologist Clement Rugg: he called typhoons after members of parliament who refused to vote for the allocation of loans for meteorological research.

The names of cyclones became widespread during the Second World War. US Air and Navy meteorologists monitored typhoons in the Pacific Northwest. To avoid confusion, military meteorologists named typhoons after their wives or mother-in-law. After the war, the US National Weather Service compiled an alphabetical list of female names. The main idea behind this list is to use short, simple and easy-to-remember names.

By 1950, the first hurricane naming system had appeared. First, they chose the phonetic army alphabet, and in 1953 they decided to return to FEMALE NAMES. Subsequently, the assignment of female names to hurricanes entered the system and was extended to other tropical cyclones - to the Pacific typhoons, storms in the Indian Ocean, the Timor Sea and the northwest coast of Australia.

The naming procedure itself had to be streamlined. So, the first hurricane of the year began to be called a woman's name, starting with the first letter of the alphabet, the second - with the second, etc. The names were chosen short, which are easy to pronounce and easy to remember. For typhoons, there was a list of 84 female names. In 1979, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), in conjunction with the US National Weather Service, expanded this list to include male names as well.

Since there are several basins where hurricanes are formed, there are also several lists of names. For Atlantic Basin hurricanes, there are 6 alphabetical lists, each of 21 names, which are used for 6 consecutive years and then repeated. If there are more than 21 Atlantic hurricanes in a year, the Greek alphabet will be used.

In the event that a typhoon is particularly destructive, the name assigned to it is deleted from the list and replaced by another. Thus, the name KATRINA was permanently deleted from the list of meteorologists.

In the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean, the names of animals, flowers, trees and even products are in store for typhoons: Nakri, Yufung, Kanmuri, Kopu. The Japanese refused to give deadly typhoons female names, because women there are considered gentle and quiet creatures. And the tropical cyclones of the northern Indian Ocean remain unnamed.