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How Big of a Storm Gets a Name?

The World Meteorological Organization is in charge of assigning names to tropical storms that originate in the Atlantic Ocean and reach a sustained wind speed of 39 miles per hour. Any storm that reaches a sustained wind speed of 74 miles per hour is called a hurricane. Here are details on how hurricane form.

When a storm becomes a hurricane it retains the name that it was given as a tropical storm. The World Meteorological Organization has six lists of storm names which are recycled every six years. The name lists for 2008 through 2017 are shown in the table below.

Hurricanes are name alphabetically, hence the first tropical storm or cyclone that attains a sustained wind speed of at least 39 miles per hour in a calendar year is given the name that begins with an “A” from the appropriate list above. The second storm is given the name that begins with a “B”. The naming process continues through out the year with the names assigned in alphabetical order.