Hurricane Season 2006
Hurricane season is once again upon us. While those of us that
enjoy the weather find these storms fascinating to study and
watch them from birth to landfall others are more than happy
to not hear about another hurricane ever again especially if
they found themselves dealing with one of the many hurricanes
we had in 2005.

Last years hurricane season was yet another one for the record
books and the list of names ran out which meant that the hurricane
center had to turn to the Greek alphabet to start naming the storms
that continued to come. If this happens again this hurricane season
we will once again see storms named after the Greek alphabet.

The history of naming hurricanes

No one is exactly sure when hurricanes were first started to be
named. Weather history seems to point to only the biggest
hurricanes being named. It is felt by scientists that the first
person to ever name a hurricane was probably an Australian
scientist named Clement Wragge.
Scientists feel that Clement had a very interesting way of
choosing his names. It seems that Clement Wragge named
stronger hurricanes after his friends and the weaker hurricanes
after his enemies.

The current way of naming hurricanes was started in the year 1941.
Female names were used to name hurricanes in the year 1953 and
the male names were used in 1979. The first hurricane of the
hurricane season always starts with the letter "A" and the next one
starts with the letter "B". The names continue on through the
alphabet although it's very rare for a letter past "O" to be needed.
The reason for this is because there are usually not that many
hurricanes in one hurricane season. And the letters
"Q,U,X, Y, and Z" are not used to name hurricanes in the
Atlantic and Western Pacific Oceans.

Where do the names comes from?

The names all start with a letter of the alphabet and go in
alphabetical order with female and male names together.
If a female name is first then a male name comes next
followed by a female and then a male and this pattern
continues until there are enough names. Tropical storms
and hurricanes are named in both the Pacific and Atlantic
Oceans. In the case of a storm forming in the Atlantic,
Caribbean, or Gulf of Mexico and then crossing over to
the Pacific Ocean the storm then loses its original name
and is re-named a new name from the list for the Pacific
Ocean. The list of names rotates through every six years
which means that the names for the 2000 storm season
will be used again in the year 2006 as long as they are
not retired. A hurricanes name is retired if the storm
has been a very damaging and devastating storm.

2006 Hurricane Season Atlantic Basin Names
Alberto
Beryl
Chris
Debby
Ernesto
Florence
Gordon
Helene
Isaac
Joyce
Kirk
Leslie
Michael
Nadine
Oscar
Patty
Rafael
Sandy
Tony