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Tropical cyclones are named for historical reasons and so as to avoid confusion when communicating with the public, as more than one tropical cyclone can exist at a time. Names are drawn in order from predetermined lists. They are usually assigned to tropical cyclones with one-, three-, or ten-minute windspeeds of at least 65 km/h (40 mph). However, standards vary from basin to basin, with some tropical depressions named in the western Pacific whilst tropical cyclones have to have gale-force winds occurring more than halfway around the center within the Australian and southern Pacific regions.
The official practice of naming tropical cyclones started in 1945 within the western Pacific. Naming continued through the next few years, and in 1950, names also started to be assigned to tropical storms forming in the northern Atlantic Ocean. In the Atlantic, names were originally taken from the World War II version of the Phonetic Alphabet, but this was changed in 1953 to use lists of women's names which were created yearly. Around this time naming of tropical cyclones also began within the southern and central parts of the Pacific. However naming did not begin in the eastern Pacific until 1969, with the original naming lists designed to be used year after year in sequence. In 1960, naming also began in the southwestern Indian Ocean, and in 1963 the Philippine Meteorological Service started assigning names to tropical cyclones that moved into or formed in their area of responsibility. Later in 1963, warning centers within the Australian region also commenced naming tropical cyclones. In 2004, the India Meteorological Department began naming cyclones that formed in the northern Indian Ocean, and in 2011, the Brazilian Navy Hydrographic Center started using a naming list to name tropical cyclones over the southern Atlantic Ocean.
North Atlantic
By 1950, tropical cyclones that were judged by the US Weather Bureau to have intensified into a tropical storm started to be assigned names.[1][2] Storms were originally named in alphabetical order using the World War II version of the Phonetic Alphabet.[1] By 1952 a new phonetic alphabet had been developed and this led to confusion as some parties wanted to use the newer phonetic alphabet.[1] In 1953, to alleviate any confusion, forecasters decided to use a set of 23 feminine names.[1][2] After the 1953 Atlantic hurricane season, public reception to the idea seemed favorable, so the same list was adopted for the next year with one change: Gilda for Gail.[1] However, after storms like Carol and Hazel got a lot of publicity during the 1953 season, forecasters agreed to develop a new set of names for 1955.[1] However, before this could happen, a tropical storm was declared significant on January 2, 1955, and was named as Alice.[1] The new set of names were developed and used in 1955 beginning with Brenda continuing through the alphabet to Zelda.[1] For each season before 1960, a new set of names was developed.[1] 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.[3] 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.[3] These four lists were used until 1972 when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) replaced them with 9 lists designed to be used from 1972.[3] Also in 1972, subtropical cyclones began receiving names from a separate naming list using the NATO phonetic alphabet. The policy at that time indicated that if a subtropical storm transitioned into a fully tropical system it would receive a second name from the main list, as seen with Hurricane Fran in 1973, which was initially referred to as Subtropical Storm Bravo. This practice was later discontinued after the 1973 season, with subtropical storms receiving numbers rather than names.[4] In 1977, NOAA made the decision to relinquish control over the name selection by allowing a regional committee of the World Meteorological Organization to select the new sets of names, which would contain male names and some Spanish and French names, in order to reflect all the cultures and languages within the Atlantic Ocean.[2][3] The World Meteorological Organization decided that the new lists of hurricane name would start to be used in 1979.[2][3] Since 1979 the same lists have been used, but with names of significant tropical cyclones removed from the lists and replaced with new names.[2] In 2002, subtropical cyclones started to be assigned names from the main list of names set up for that year. In 2005 and 2020, as all the names pre-selected for the season were exhausted, the contingency plan of using letters from the Greek alphabet as names had to be used.[5] The original WMO policy of naming storms with Greek letters stated that if a storm was destructive enough to warrant retirement of the name, the Greek letter would be used again, but the name, with the year after it, would be included in the list of retired names; for example, "Alpha (2005)" would be listed under retired names, but Alpha could still be used again in later seasons. However, following the devastation wrought by hurricanes Eta and Iota in 2020, the former policy was rejected, and it was decided that Eta and Iota would be permanently retired, and that the Greek alphabet would be discontinued and replaced with an auxiliary name list,[6] which has not yet been used.