After a record-breaking hurricane season in 2020, meteorologists and researchers around the world are figuring out ways to make future seasons better communicated to the public. Tropical storms are given names to help with this communication and is essential when it comes to tracking these storms. Storm names are produced and maintained by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Every year we start a new list of 21 recycled names that circulate through a six-year period. Some names will be retired on these lists and will never be used again. The WMO will retire names when storms are extremely destructive and there is substantial loss of life. Three storms from 2020 were just added to the retired list: Laura, Eta, and Iota. Dorian from 2019 was also retired. This is the first time we have ever seen names from the Greek alphabet added to the list.
The Greek alphabet is used as backup for when the we run out of names for the season. This has only been done twice in 2005 and 2020. Since we have added two Greek alphabet letters to the retired names, it has launched the discussion about using those letters. The WMO's Hurricane Committee held its virtual naming convention this week and decided to completely drop the use of the Greek alphabet for many reasons.
It has been noticed that the Greek alphabet was confusing to follow. The letters of the Greek alphabet could be translated into a different meaning in different parts of the world and it also took away from people primarily focusing on the impacts of the storm. A lot of the letters are also very similar which adds more confusion. Zeta, Eta, and Theta all follow each other in the alphabet and that caused people to mix up the storms.
The WMO has officially decided to come up with a supplemental list of 21 names for the Atlantic that will be used for when the standard list is exhausted. These names can be recycled and retired when necessary. This will help bring more significance to future storms and help the general public understand the impacts better.
There is one more significant change that will begin this year for the Atlantic hurricane season. The National Hurricane Center will start issuing regular Tropical Weather Outlooks starting May 15th.
This comes after discussions considered pushing back the start of the Atlantic season, which starts June 1st, to align with the start of the Pacific hurricane season, which starts May 15th.