The official list of names for the Hurricane Season

Hurricanes are the most massive storms that can be produced by Nature. They occur in the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

The official "Hurricane Season" kicks off on June 1 and ends on November 30.

These tropical-rotating storms begin to take shape when the ocean's temperatures are high.

But how do storms get their names? And why do hurricanes have human names? Who chooses them?

Will your name be on the list of hurricanes for the upcoming season?

A long time ago, hurricanes were named randomly.

The military, for example, started naming storms after their girlfriends and wives, but none of these choices were made public.

Then, the National Weather Service decided to give human names to hurricanes to quickly identify storms and make it easier for citizens and media to process warning messages.

They used the World War II Alphabet - Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy - but this created confusion because the storm names were the same every year.

A few years later, in 1953, US weather professionals started using female names sorted alphabetically.

In 1979, they began alternating the feminine designations with male names, recycling the list every six years.

Recycled Every Six Years

Until recently, the list of names was decided and released by the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

Today, the entity responsible for choosing the official hurricane names is the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

All six lists below rotate and get recycled every six years, meaning this year's list will be used again six years from now.

In the Atlantic basin, the WMO uses English, Spanish, and French names.

Whenever more than 21 hurricanes occur in the Atlantic Ocean, further storms will get their names after the Greek alphabet - Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, etc.

A hurricane name will be retired if it is too deadly or costly and becomes too inappropriate to use in future years.

Since the 1950s, around 80 storm names have been retired.

Finally, remember that you can't request a storm to be named after you.

Here are the official 2021-2026 hurricane season names for both the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean in alphabetical order:

Atlantic Ocean Hurricane Names

 

 

 

Eastern North Pacific Hurricane Names

 

 

Words by Luís MP | Founder of SurferToday.com