HURRICANE NAMING TRIVIA

From this article in the Times Online

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* There are only four names left for tropical storms and hurricanes this year: Stan, Tammy, Vince and Wilma. After that, names switch to the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and so on through Omega, if needed.

* A storm name is retired if it causes widespread damage and deaths.

* When old names are retired, new names have to be drafted in to a database maintained specifically for Atlantic Ocean storms.

* In Asia, storms may be given names of people, but also of flowers or other non-human beings.

* Japan does not participate in this system, preferring instead to number each storm chronologically starting anew each year.

* Currently, there are six separate 21-name lists and each of them is used every six years in a rotation. They donÂ’t include names that begin with q, u, x, y and z because there arenÂ’t enough names starting with those letters.

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In the roughly 60 years since regular hurricane naming started, they've never needed to go to the Greek alphabet.

So, if there is a deadly Hurricane Alpha, what is it replaced with when itÂ’s retired?

"We donÂ’t know. It will go to the Swahili alphabet or something else," joked Jim Lushine, severe weather expert at the National Weather Service in Miami.

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