NATION-WORLD

Andrea’s already done: So who else is on 2019′s list of hurricane names?

GateHouse Media staff
[PIXABAY]

Mother Nature this week delivered the first storm of the Atlantic hurricane season that was powerful enough to earn a name: Subtropical Storm Andrea.

It wasn't long though before Andrea began to weaken and was downgraded.

The storm wasn't expected to pose a hazard to anyone on land, according to the National Hurricane Center.

But that got us thinking — now that we can scratch Andrea off the official roster of Atlantic tropical cyclone names for 2019 — who else is on the list?

Actually, there’s not much mystery to it because the names are used in rotation and recycled every six years. For instance, many of the names in 2019 will be used again in 2025.

The names of Atlantic tropical storms are maintained and updated through a strict procedure by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization. According to the National Hurricane Center, “the use of easily remembered names greatly reduces confusion when two or more tropical storms occur at the same time.”

“In the past, confusion and false rumors have arisen when storm advisories broadcast from radio stations were mistaken for warnings concerning an entirely different storm located hundreds of miles away,” the hurricane center states on its website.

But sometimes the named storms gain enough notoriety for the death and damage they caused that the names are “retired” from the list — sort of the meteorological version of retiring the jersey number of a star athlete.

The World Meteorological Organization retired two storm names in 2018: Florence and Michael.

Florence in September devastated the Carolinas and produced widespread flooding in the Eastern Seaboard. Then in October, Michael pounded the Florida Panhandle and the southeastern United States.

Their names will be replaced in the 2024 list with Francine and Milton.

When the Atlantic hurricane season officially kicks off June 1, the sequence of names this year will be:

• Andrea

• Barry

• Chantal

• Dorian

• Erin

• Fernand

• Gabrielle

• Humberto

• Imelda

• Jerry

• Karen

• Lorenzo

• Melissa

• Nestor

• Olga

• Pablo

• Rebekah

• Sebastien

• Tanya

• Van

• Wendy

Next year’s sequence of names for 2020 goes like this: Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo, Hanna, Isaias, Josephine, Kyle, Laura, Marco, Nana, Omar, Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky and Wilfred.

This article contains material from the Associated Press.