Several historic hurricanes with names that begin with “I” have made landfall in the continental United States, including the most recent Hurricane Idalia.
Idalia, a Category 3 hurricane, made landfall Wednesday along Florida’s Big Bend and is already barreling across the Georgia border. The eventful season has produced tropical systems along both the Pacific and Atlantic coastlines, only a little over a week after Hurricane Hilary swept across the Baja California Peninsula and the southwestern United States.
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Why are Hurricanes Named?
To simplify communications and prevent confusion in reporting, tropical storms and hurricanes are given short, distinctive names. This is especially important if many storms form at once.
It has everything to do with ease of communication. It’s meant to make communicating about them straightforward for the average person.
says Brian McNoldy, a storm expert and senior research associate at the University of Miami.
When trying to coordinate throughout the storm or be ready for its approach, it’s far simpler to talk about Hurricane Idalia than, for example, “Tropical Cyclone 51.3.35.7.” The distinct names were developed so that people in a region where one storm is due to make landfall wouldn’t be misled by warnings about another place where another hurricane might make landfall.
The naming of storms is done under the authority of the World Meteorological Organization; for Atlantic hurricanes, a list of names is utilized on a six-year rotation. Hurricanes that cause enormous damage and death, like Katrina, are unlikely to be used again.
How are Hurricanes Named?
According to the National Hurricane Center, an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization uses a list of several names to name Atlantic storms and hurricanes every year for six years, with one list being repeated every sixth year.
The season’s first hurricane is given an “A” designation each year, and the names progress from there. The alphabet’s letters aren’t all included. For instance, the lists for the current six-year cycle do not include any storms with the name “X”.
Some storm experts have suggested that “I” storms are more dangerous since they strike during the peak of the season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, and peaks on September 10. The names of hurricanes that inflict significant loss of life or damage are retired by the World Meteorological Organization, which has given hurricanes names since 1954, due to their sensitivity. 14 storm names start with the letter “I” in total among the 94 retired names, more than any other letter.
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Some of the names used to identify hurricanes are; Idalia, Katrina, Harvey, Ian, Arlene, Emily, Jose, Franklin, and Whitney among others.
