Why do US meteorologists personify the tropical Lows that can turn into hurricanes by giving them human names?

Question

Jason T, thanks for factually correcting me and bringing the point up so clearly for the forum, but asking the Q in the factually correct way would have exceeded the limits on Q's imposed by the Q-box any way.

Answer 1

The main reason to name storms is so not to confuse one storm with another. With a name, if there is more than one hurricane/tropical storm/tropical depression you can easily refer to the storm you would like information on. Here's more from NOAA:

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/general/lib/reason.html

Answer 2

The U.S. does not name the storms. The World Meteorological Organization comes up with the list. The lists rotate every six years. If a storm causes catastrophic damage or causes death, it is removed from the list and replaced with another name with the same letter.

Answer 3

This is done _worldwide_ to minimize confusion when refering to particular tropical cyclones.

Check out the World Meteorological Organization's Fact Sheet on this, it goes into some history about the naming convention as well.
http://www.wmo.ch/web/www/TCP/TCnames2004-2009.pdf

Answer 4

So that Hurricane Katrina will be remembered as Hurricane Katrina and not Hurricane Bozo.

Answer 5

A hurricane is like a human having a temper tantrum... thus it is givin a human name

Answer 6

What different styles of names are there? i assume as a results of fact there are various em. i think of all names and letters are up for grabs. *excepting ones acceptable to respond to c* i think of type 5 typhoon names are retires or ones that reason significant dying.

Answer 7

They do that so that they can distinguish one from another when talking about them later.

Answer 8

Way to blame something else on the US.

Answer 9

So that it will be more personal to them and not something abstract.