Severe cyclone, Haishen, heads to Japan on September 5, 2020 -

AP / SIPA

The first name dilemma, or at least the dilemma of finding one when it's gone.

This year, the United Nations is on the verge of running out of first names, for only the second time in history.

Indeed, this year, the number of tropical storms in the Atlantic has sharply increased.

A list drawn up by the United States Hurricane Center and then by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), allows since 1953 to name the tropical storms of the Atlantic.

Initially, the lists only included the first names of women.

In 1979, male names were introduced and they now alternate with female first names.

Six lists of 21 names are used in turn.

“It would be confusing to have more than one tropical cyclone in the same year with the letter T,” for example, a spokesperson for the WMO told AFP.

The 2020 Atlantic #hurricane season is so active that it has nearly exhausted the regular alphabetical list of storm names, which rotates every 6 years.


The names of particularly damaging or deadly hurricanes are retired.


Details https://t.co/z5lbKoZulU pic.twitter.com/ljmkhz8uow

- World Meteorological Organization (@WMO) September 15, 2020

This year's Atlantic tropical storm season, which ends on November 30, has been so active that the UN will soon run out of first names and have to fall back on the letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, beta. , gamma, delta and so on ...

First names to facilitate memory

Cyclones began to be named years ago to make them easier to identify in warning messages.

Experts believed the names were much easier to remember than the old, complicated methods of identifying latitudes and longitudes.

At first, storms were named arbitrarily.

From now on, a series of rules have been put in place for names to obey them: in particular, they must be easily recognizable and reflect a balance between French, Spanish, Dutch and English names due to the geographical coverage of storms throughout the country. Atlantic and the Caribbean.

The infamous storm events like Mangkhut (Philippines, 2018), Irma and Maria (Caribbean, 2017), Katrina (United States, 2005) and Mitch (Honduras, 1998) which were devastating and deadly have had their names removed from the list and replaced with another.

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