How are hurricanes named?

Understanding hurricane names is as easy as A, B, C. Hurricanes are named alphabetically, and each year the first hurricane or storm will have a name starting with “A”, and the second one given a name starting with “B” and so on; however there are no hurricane names beginning with “Q”, “U”, “X”, “Y” and “Z”. To date there are six lists of names generated by the National Hurricane Centre and updated by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization. These six lists rotate continually, therefore the list for 2012 will be the same list used in 2006. It is important to note that hurricane names can be retired after they mark devastating hurricanes. As such, new hurricane names are added to replace the old ones, so the 2010 list will be slightly different to the 2004 list as 4 names were retired after the destructive 2004 hurricane season. Now Colin, Fiona, Igor and Julia have replaced Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne in the 2010 hurricane names list.

Why are hurricanes named?

Hurricanes are given names because this makes them easier to identify and track, particularly when more than one storm occurs at the same time. The old method of tracking hurricanes (recording their latitude and longitude) became too tedious.

Hurricane Names 2010, 2011 and 2012

Below are the 2010-2012 hurricane names.