hurricane names, I dont get it!?

Question

Ok, so they say that every year we have a list of hurricane names starting with the letter A through Z but if they do go in that order where the first hurricane is named lets say Alex and the next Bianca then how come I remember that we went from hurrricane Katrina to Wilma, what happened to all the letters in between?

Answer 1

In 2005, after Katrina there were several named storms that did not impact the US but still developed. Rita did hit the TX/LA border in September. The storms did happen. Because of mainstream media coverage you likely didn't hear about them.

Hurricane names are created by the World Meteorological Organization, and are rotated every 6 years. For example, the list of storms for this season (Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, etc.) was last used in 2000, and will be used again in 2012.

Only 21 of the 26 available names are used in a typical season. Because the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z have so few names that can be used, they are skipped in the list.

On occaision, a name can be retired if the hurricane was especially destructive or otherwise noteworthy. For example, there will never be another Hurricane Andrew or Hurricane Katrina.

2005 was especially confusing because once the original 21 names were used (this had never happened before), they utilized the letters of the greek alphabet to name the other 6 storms that occured. Alpha, Beta and Gamma were the first 3, Zeta was the last. So the alphabet seemed to jump around, but this was an extreemly rare occurance.

Answer 2

There were other hurricanes in the middle there. In between Katrina and Wilma there was Tropical Storm Lee, Hurricanes Nate, Maria, Ophelia, Phillipe, Rita, Stan, Tropical Storm Tammy, Hurricane Vince, and then Hurricane Wilma.

However, out of those, not all of them made landfall on US Property.

Answer 3

They used all the letters and more. You just missed them. Probably you missed them because they were small or never came close to the USA. Note that the storms are first named when they become a tropical storm.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2005/hurricanes05.html

http://hurricane.accuweather.com/hurricane/past.asp?ocean=atlantic&year=2005

http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/2005names.htm

Answer 4

There were hurricanes in between, don't you remember hurricane Rita? You just didn't happen to hear about them, but they definitely existed.

Answer 5

The hurricanes are named after the first person who saw them.Or if they are not enough names they named them after the greek alphabet!

Answer 6

they use the names for tropical stoms also and some of them die out so we don't get to hear about them