Natural Science Forum / Earth Science / Oceanography / September 2003

You're wrong.  Correction follows.

Originally, tropical storms were given the names of Saints, based on the
Saint's Day upon which the particular storm occurred.  Thus the storm
which struck Puerto Rico on July 26, 1825...Saint Anne's Day...was called
"Hurricane Santa Ana", and two storms which hit the island on Sep. 13
(Saint Philip's Day) in 1876 and 1928 were called San Felipe the First and
San Felipe the Second.  Clement Wragge, an Australian meteorologist, began
assigning the names of female suffragist politicians to storms over a hundred
years ago (which caused some interesting headlines...e.g. "Mary wends random
destructive path" etc.), but it didn't become common practise until WWII
when Navy and Army Air Force meteorologists adopted the same practise.
Briefly, in the early '50's, storms were given phonetic alphabet designations
(Able, Baker, Charlie), but in 1953 the alphabetically-ordered women's names
convention was adopted.  This lasted for a quarter of a century until men's
and women's names were alternated.  Just last month, Rep. Shiela Jackson Lee,
D-Texas, declared her desire that a new convention "would try to be inclusive
of African-American names" such as...her suggestions...Keisha, Jamal and
Deshawn.  In the Pacific, the names of storms are not limited to those of
human beings; they've named storms after species of flowers, oxen and fish,
sea and storm gods, airports, mountains and even food dishes.

It's been noted that some of the recent male-named storms seem to wander
about as if they're afraid to ask directions, blow through without sticking
around for too long, and produce a great deal of strong wind...

+> Hi
+> I wondered why storm names always have female names
+> (correct me if i am wrong).

Fredrick, Gilbert, Hugo and Andrew are all on line 1 for you...

James

Close but no cigar.

They come into your life and break all your crockery but leave it all
nice and clean though.