Hurricane Irma sustained winds get up to speeds of 185 mph (almost 300 km/h), destroying everything that gets in its way. Although hurricanes are not that uncommon or fascinating for humans, we have always been interested in the way they are named. Also, it is interesting to note that a majority of these storms tend to get female names, and we are wondering why that is the case.
Hurricanes form every year, and they always get proper names because of the fact that several of them are active at the particular time, so calling them helps the meteorologists and rescue services not to confuse them. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) makes the list of names of tropical storms in the hurricane season alphabetically.
Every tropical storm in which winds reach more than 40mph (63km/h) is being named and it only keeps it if it grows into a hurricane. There are six regulations about naming. The names reappear every six years, but there are some names which are not used anymore because these hurricanes have been disastrous. For example, names such as Katrina and Sandy are out of the picture.
In the past, hurricanes had different names in every country. For example, in the Caribbean, they were named after saints. In the early 20th century, one Austrian weatherman called the hurricanes after the politicians he didn’t prefer, whereas the American soldiers during the WWII denominated hurricanes after their wives and girlfriends.
The trend to give female names to the hurricanes originated here. The US National Weather Service started using female names for storms in 1953, but the male ones have been added just recently. Still, most of the countries still name their hurricanes, storms, and cyclones after the more beautiful gender.
