updated May 23, 2019

How hurricanes are named

A beachfront neighborhood decimated by Category 5 Hurricane Michael in 2018. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Prior to the 1950s, there was no uniform way to name hurricanes. Some used saints' names, others used longitude and latitude. In 1953, that all changed when the U.S. started using female names to identify storms. By 1979, the use of female and male names was adopted for storms in the northern Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.

Why it matters: Naming hurricanes stemmed from the need to make communication about such destructive storms more salient and less confusing, especially if two storms were happening at the same time.

Driving the news: NOAA's Climate Prediction Center is predicting a “near-normal” hurricane season this year with a likely range of 9 to 15 named storms of which 4 to 8 could become hurricanes.

Details: The United Nations' World Meteorological Organization maintains the list of potential hurricane names. Names are given to tropical storms when they have sustained wind speeds higher than 39 mph. Once a storm reaches sustained winds of 74 mph or higher, it's considered a hurricane, and it maintains the same name it was given when it became a tropical storm.

There are six lists of names, each starting with a different letter of the alphabet — and each list is on a six-year rotation.

This year's list is identical to 2013's, a year which saw no storm names retired.
The lists don't include the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z.

In rare instances where there are more than 21 tropical cyclones in one year, names are then given from the Greek alphabet.

Names are taken off the list if the hurricane caused significant damage or casualties — for example, there will never be another Hurricane Katrina, Sandy or Maria.

2019's hurricane season officially begins on June 1, and the names on deck are: Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dorian, Erin, Fernand, Gabrielle, Humberto, Imelda, Jerry, Karen, Lorenzo, Melissa, Nestor, Olga, Pablo, Rebekah, Sebastien, Tanya, Van and Wendy.

A "hurricane" is the name given to systems that develop over the Atlantic or the eastern Pacific Ocean. Tropical storms that develop in other places are called "typhoons" or "tropical cyclones" — and the WMO also maintains the lists of names for those.

Some countries, like the Philippines, use their own names so a storm is more relevant to their population.

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Additional Stories

Miriam Kramer

13 hours ago

NASA's 1st all-female spacewalk planned for this month

NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch on the ISS. Photo: NASA TV

NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch are expected to make history as the first all-female team to perform a spacewalk outside of the International Space Station.

The big picture: The spacewalk, currently scheduled for October 21, will be focused on changing out batteries that power some of the station's solar arrays.

Space

Eileen Drage O'Reilly

Oct 3, 2019

U.S. likely to retain measles elimination status — but barely

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

New York says it has reached a "milestone" in halting the measles outbreak that started in October 2018, and U.S. public health officials now believe the country has retained its measles elimination status — just barely meeting the year deadline, a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

Yes, but: Recent cases reported from returning international travelers demonstrate the danger of new outbreaks when there are still pockets of communities with low vaccination rates. Despite measles being mostly preventable, the combination of the anti-vaccination movement and vaccine hesitancy places several communities at risk.

The latest: New York's health commissioner announced Thursday morning that "there are no longer any active cases in New York State associated with the initial measles outbreak from October 2018."

But the commissioner added that New York health officials remain "vigilant" and are currently investigating several other new cases that are unrelated to the outbreak that just ended.
1 of the new cases is a person who just returned from overseas to Rockland County, which had declared in September that its initial outbreak had officially ended. Because this new case was "imported" from someone traveling in another country, this is not considered to be part of the same outbreak.
Several other New York cases were reported in Nassau (2), Monroe (2) and Putnam (1) counties, according to the health commissioner.
Meanwhile, the CDC says 31 states reported 1,243 individual patients, 131 of whom were hospitalized and 65 of whom suffered complications, including pneumonia and encephalitis. No one died in the U.S.

"The end of the New York state measles outbreak is a credit to the great work by local and state health departments, community and religious leaders, and other partners. However, this outbreak is a grave reminder that we need heightened vigilance around measles as well as other vaccine preventable diseases, and we continue to address the myths and misinformation driving these outbreaks."

— CDC, in a statement

What they're saying: Peter Hotez, professor of pediatrics and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, tells Axios that America's measles elimination status isn't as important as "the fact that we remain highly vulnerable" for 2 reasons.

There are "at least 100 geographic pockets in the U.S. where a high percentage of kids are not being vaccinated, together with measles cases now regularly imported from Europe where measles is even more widespread," Hotez says.
During the first and second quarter of next year, "we’ll again hit peak measles transmission season. [The] bottom line [is] nothing has really been done to combat the anti-vaccine movement in America, and we’re just as vulnerable to measles epidemics as we were this time last year."

What's next: The CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services are expected to have further information on the measles outbreak on Friday.

The Pan American Health Organization’s regional verification commission will meet in the coming months to look over the U.S. data from this year and likely 2018 to make the final determination on the U.S.' elimination status, the CDC spokesperson said.
PAHO declared recently that the U.K., Albania, the Czech Republic and Greece had lost their measles-free status.

Go deeper:

Measles

Rebecca Falconer

Oct 3, 2019

Study: Vaping-associated lung disease could be caused by toxic fumes

A vaping store in New York City. Photo: by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Lung injuries from vaping are "most likely" caused by direct toxicity or tissue damage from noxious chemical fumes, the Mayo Clinic said in a statement Wednesday announcing new findings. But the researchers cautioned the study is in its early stages and based on a small sample size.

Why it matters: Scientists are trying to determine the cause of the vaping-associated lung disease, which has led to at least 17 deaths, more than 800 reported injuries in almost all U.S. states, and bans on various vaping and tobacco products.

Vaping