Hurricane names 2024: Here’s why the list may look familiar

TAMPA, Fla. - The 2024 hurricane season is expected to be one of the most active on record, with a predicted 23 names that may look familiar.

The list of hurricane names is rotated every six years, so the 2024 list will be a repeat of 2018 except for Florence and Michael. Those names were retired due to the damage the storms caused.

What are the 2024 hurricane names?

Alberto
Beryl
Chris
Debby
Ernesto
Francine
Gordon
Helene
Isaac
Joyce
Kirk
Leslie
Milton
Nadine
Oscar
Patty
Rafael
Sara
Tony
Valerie
William

Why are hurricanes named?

According to the National Hurricane Center, using short, distinctive names in written and verbal communication is quicker and more accurate than using older, more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods. Plus, the organization states that using easily remembered names reduces confusion when two or more storms are happening simultaneously.

NHC says for several hundred years, hurricanes in the West Indies were named after saints.

Closer to home, military meteorologists initially used a haphazard system involving the phonetic alphabet to name storms – such as hurricanes Baker, Dog, and Easy in 1950.

The United States Weather Bureau, now called the National Weather Service, began creating more familiar lists of storm names in 1953. They were all women’s names at first, but that changed in 1978 at the direction of then-Secretary of Commerce Juanita Kreps.

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The 21-name lists – one for each letter of the alphabet, minus the less-common letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z – are now maintained and updated by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization.

A permanent 6-year storm list began in 1979. The names repeat, but if a storm is particularly costly or deadly, it is removed from the list, or retired. When that happens, the WMO committee selects a name beginning with the same letter to replace it.

What happens if the hurricane names run out?

Until 2020, when all the hurricane names were used, the Greek alphabet came into play, and storms were called Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Zeta, Eta, Theta, etc. That happened twice - once in 2005 and again in 2020.

Now, instead of using the Greek alphabet, a list of supplemental tropical cyclone names will be used.

What happens if a storm forms outside of hurricane season?

Hurricane season begins June 1 and runs through Nov. 30. If a storm forms outside of those dates, it will assume the next name on the list depending on the year. For example, if a storm forms in December, it will be called the next name on that year's list. If it forms in February, it will take a name from the upcoming season.