Hurricane Names

I had a couple of Top Five Tuesdays that made fun of hurricane names a couple of months ago.

I used names that began with Z and X thinking that there was no way that a hurricane total could never reach 24 or 26 in one year. The record in one year is 18. It is the beginning of September and we are already at 15. Ophelia just popped up.

I did a bit of research into hurricane names and this is what I found.

2005 Names
1. Arlene
2. Bret
3. Cindy
4. Dennis
5. Emily
6. Franklin
7. Gert
8. Harvey
9. Irene
10. Jose
11. Katrina
12. Lee
13. Maria
14. Nate
15. Ophelia
16. Philippe
17. Rita
18. Stan
19. Tammy
20. Vince
21. Wilma

Military weather forecasters began giving women's names to significant storms during WWII, then in 1950 the World Meteorological Organization agreed to an alphabetical naming system, using the military's radio code. The first named Atlantic hurricane was Able in 1950.

Officials soon realized the naming convention would cause problems in the history books if more than one powerful Hurricane Able made landfall. So, in 1953 the organization adopted a rotating series of women's names, planning to retire names of significant storms.

Feminists urged the WMO to add men's names, which was done in 1979. The boy-girl-boy-girl naming convention evolved to include French and Spanish names in the Atlantic system, reflecting the languages of the nations affected by Carribean hurricanes.

Twenty-one names are reserved each year (the letters q, u, x, y and z are not used), and the names are recycled every six years, minus those retired. When a name is retired, the World Meteorological Organization chooses a new name to replace it.



My question then... is what will happen if we reach 22 hurricanes this year?