That’s it, storm Danielle has officially become a cyclone (1), according to the American Hurricane Center which tracks these disturbances. At the end of last week, several media were worried about the possible arrival of this cyclone towards the Bay of Biscay. No reason to be alerted, tempers Météo France. For forecasters, if Danielle reaches Franco-Spanish waters, which is not certain, it will be in the form of a classic depression, with heavy rains, and not in the form of a cataclysmic hurricane.
On Wednesday, September 7, Danielle was just over 1,000 kilometers northwest of the Azores. The winds were then spinning at 120 km / h and American specialists expect a gradual disintegration of the cyclone at the end of the week. The cyclone is the second of the 2022 season, but the fourth storm to be named.
Lists of first names and the withdrawal of the Greek alphabet
Each year, a list of 21 first names is used to designate Atlantic storms and cyclones. Before Danielle, there was Alex, Bonnie and Colin. And in the Caribbean, it is now Earl who is about to brush against Bermuda, before, perhaps, the appearance of Fiona. The same list of names returns every six years, but when a hurricane is particularly devastating, its name is removed from the rotation. This keeps the name and the disaster associated. Katrina (in 2005), Sandy (2012), or even Irma and Maria (2017) have thus disappeared from the lists.
And if the season is really rich in cyclones, the authorities attack the Greek alphabet, with “Alpha”, “Beta”, “Gamma”, etc. This additional recourse took place in 2005 and 2020. With a notable problem: Hurricane Iota, in November 2020, caused nearly 70 deaths and very significant damage. Logically, his name was therefore removed from the list. But the Greek alphabet does not include an “alternative” letter that could replace iota. It was therefore decided to establish an additional list of names. In case Walter is not the last hurricane of 2022, we will have to face Adria, Braylen, Caridad and the following!
Hurricanes named after the saint of the day
Before this usage, for centuries, cyclones were named after the saint of the day they devastated the land, or the name of the destroyed city. We find for example the hurricane “Santa Ana” in Puerto Rico in 1825 and the hurricane “San Felipe” in 1928, also known under the name of “Okeechobee”, from the name of a Florida lake which was the most affected. . The problem with the latter technique lies in the risk of confusion. Since hurricanes always occur at the same time and sometimes affect the same cities from one year to the next, we risk ending up with four “New Orleans” hurricanes.
Why not just assign numbers to them? First to avoid confusion with hurricane intensity scales, which work by number. Then because the hurricane that we detect “first” will not necessarily be the first to make landfall. Finally, quite simply because it is easier to alert the general public to the risks of “Nadine” or “Franklin” than to “Hurricane No. 12”.
Typhoons named after flowers and animals
Legend has it that the idea of nicknaming the storms came from Air Force pilots and US Navy sailors, who used to name their ex-girlfriends. Officially, it is from 1950 that this system is used, first effectively with female first names. In 1979, a female-male alternation was put in place, after a battle in public opinion against the fact that unstable and deadly events were always associated with female first names.
To avoid these mishaps, some countries responsible for the nomenclature of cyclones in other parts of the world avoid using first names. In Asia, typhoons in the western Pacific are named after flowers, animals, gods or myths, such as “Saola”, a Vietnamese bovid, or “Dianmu”, a Chinese deity.