Tropical Storm and Hurricane Names

Hurricane Epsilon ... the 27th tropical cyclone of 2005

Weather forecasters have learned over the years that short, distinctive names in written and spoken communications is quicker and more effective that previous naming conventions based on latitude-longitude methods.

Since 1953, Atlantic tropical storms have been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane Center. They are now maintained and updated by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization.

The original name lists used only women's names, but beginning in 1979 men's names were introduced. Male and female names now alternatate through the hurricane season.

In the event that more than 21 named tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin in a season, additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, etc. This was the case in the 2005 hurricane season.

Hurricane Names for 2012

Alberto	Beryl	Chris
Debby	Ernesto	Florence
Gordon	Helene	Issac
Joyce	Kirk	Leslie
Michael	Nadine	Oscar
Patty	Rafael	Sandy
Tony	Valerie	William
	= occured
Alpha	Beta	Gamma
Delta	Epsilon	Zeta
Storm Names in Future years

Retired Hurricane Names

The names of costly and deadly storms are retired, and removed from lists for future years. Shown below is a list of retired hurricane names, and the year in which the hurricane occurred.