The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ) predicted abusier - than - normalhurricane season in 2024 — and we ’ve already seen good deal of evidence of an above - ordinary class .

In the chaos of preparing for the storms to hit land , we would also have to manage with the confusion of telling them apart , if it were n’t for a assignment system that ’s been used for decades .

Prior to the 1950s , Atlantic hurricanes wereidentifiedsimply by the yr and the order in which they happen . This system was imperfect , however , specially when meteorologists and the medium had to keep tab on multiple storm at the same time . So in 1953 , the U.S. began using a list of female names ordered alphabetically to well clear up which hurricanes were come when . Male name were assigned to storms in 1978 , and in 1979 the coed database of figure we now apply to go after Atlantic tempest was formally adopted .

Who picked “Dorian” for this hurricane?

The leaning let in 21 public figure for each class , with name for the letter Q , U , X , Y , and Z miss from the lineup . For years when more than 21 storms appear , letters from the Grecian alphabet are used to label the duplicate .

The catalogue has enough names to last six hurricane seasons , after which it gets recycled . When hurricanes are particularly fatal or destructive , those names may beretired . In those cases , the World Meteorological Organization convene to decide on a new name to fill the empty slot . Andrew , Katrina , Ike , and Sandy are a fistful ofnamesthat have lose their place on the list in recent tenner . The World Meteorological Organization put out at least one nameeach yearbetween 2015 and 2022 .

While the organization does n’t takesuggestions , it does make theupdated listavailable for the public to see age in procession .

Have you got a Big Question you ’d care us to answer ? If so , let us have intercourse by emailing us atbigquestions@mentalfloss.com .

reveal More Facts About Weather and Climate :

A interlingual rendition of this story was published in 2020 ; it has been update for 2024 .