Hurricane Hall of Shame Listen in RealAudio Email Your Comments

Dave Thurlow, Host

 
In the Atlantic Ocean, over 400 tropical systems have been named after men and women since 1953. Most of those names are recycled--they're on rotating lists that come back every six years. For instance, we had Hurricane Arlene in 1987 and Tropical Storm Arlene in 1993. The first storm of 1999 will again be Arlene. But not all names get used over and over. Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow and this is The Weather Notebook.

Hurricane Andrew

46 Atlantic hurricanes have had such a huge impact that their names were retired. Like Michael Jordan's number (or numbers), they'll never see action again. The first member of the Hurricane Hall of Shame I guess we'll call it, is Carol. She bullied her way into New England back in 1954.

As you might expect, there's a lot of A-names in retirement, since each year starts with an A- storm. In fact, A holds more spots in the Hall of Shame than any other letter--thanks to Agnes, Alicia, Allen, Anita, Audrey, and of course, the most recent offender, Hurricane Andrew. Way down at the other end of the alphabet, we have Hurricane Roxanne, who joined the Hall of Shame in 1995.

Who decides which names are retired? It's a committee of the World Meteorological Organization. Every March they get together to decide which storms make the grade. This past year, they added the destructive Hurricane Georges and the catastrophic Hurricane Mitch to the Hall of Shame.

Bob Henson is today's writer. For more information on the Hurricane Hall of Shame, be sure to visit our website, which is mountwashington.org. The Weather Notebook is underwritten by Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive with major support provided by the National Science Foundation.