Who is in charge or responsible for giving hurricanes and tornadoes their names?
Aug 18, 2010
in
Tornado Questions
(like "Hurricane Josephine"………)
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
3 comments
Water on August 18, 2010 at 7:02 am
According to the National Hurricane Center it is indeed the World Meteorological Organization.
To quote;
Since 1978, the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization, a group representing some 120 different countries, has used pre-determined lists of names for tropical storms for each ocean basin of the world. The Atlantic basin, which falls under Regional Association IV, has a six year supply of names with 21 names for each year. Why 21 names? Well, the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z are not used because names beginning with those letters are in short supply (you would need at least 3 male and 3 female names for each letter, plus a back-up supply for those retired).
See frequently asked questions on the National Hurricane Center home page.
EDIT:
To answer the tornado names part of the question.
Tornadoes are not normally given a formal name but are often refered to the place where major damage occured or the date or a combination of the two.
Examples:
The Oklahoma City Tornadoes of 1999
The May 4, 2007, Greensburg Tornado.
The Tri-state Tornado of 1925
The Boone County Iowa tornadoes of June 13, 1976.
There is no published rules on the naming of tornadoes. This is just how forecasters or researchers refer to them in papers.
Jonathan P(Go Mets & #20!!) on August 18, 2010 at 7:02 am
It is not the NHC it is the World Meteriological organization
Radiosonde on August 18, 2010 at 7:02 am
Some division of NOAA, I would guess.
Tornado research goes on at the National Weather Centre
http://www.stuffintheair.com/National-Weather-Center.html
…part of the National Weather Service.