Running Out Of Hurricane Names, Again

It looks as though, for the second year in a row, they're going to run out of names for Atlantic hurricanes. There's just been too many.  

Powerful Hurricane Sam swirling in the central Atlantic 
northeast of the Leeward Islands earlier this week. 

Currently, Hurricane Sam is heading north in the central Atlantic Ocean, and Tropical Storm Victor is sputtering around the eastern Atlantic. Neither poses a real threat to land.

That leaves just one name left on the list, Wanda.  (When that forms, we can hope that one stays out to sea as well, so we can call it a Fish Storm Named Wanda). 

Ahem. 

Anyway, the National Hurricane Center's annual list of hurricane names doesn't include ones starting with Q, X, Y and Z, since there's so few suitable names starting with those letters.  So they have to find an alternative.

This never used to be a problem, because we both seem to be having more tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, and small little wimpy storms that haven't been detected in the past are now being spotted due to better technology. 

In 2005 and last year, the hurricane name list was exhausted, so the National Hurricane Center used Greek names instead. 

Last year holds the record with the most named storms - 30 of 'em - and some of the late season ones were strong.  Greek names often sound similar to one another and that was the trouble last year.  Toward the end of the 2020 season we had storms named Zeta, Eta and Theta, so you can see how that can get confusing. 

To avoid the confusion this year, the National Hurricane Center came up with a full list of supplemental names. It's basically a whole fresh season of names, just in case . So if anything forms after Wanda, they'll be named Adria, Braylen, Caridad, Deshawn, Emery and so on. 

We can be very sure we won't get to the end of the supplemental list, thank goodness. For the record, the last three names on that list are Tayshaun, Viviana and Will.

 That we're running out of the regular list of names definitely means we've had a very busy hurricane season. 

Another way to look at any given hurricane season, one that gives in my opinion a more complete picture of the season is ACE or Accumulated Cyclone Energy.

ACE adds up the lifespan and intensity of each hurricane and tropical storm that forms.  A wimpy little tropical storm that only lasts a day or two won't contribute much ACE.  A long lasting and powerful hurricane, like Sam, will contribute lots of ACE.

As of September 30, tropical storms and hurricanes this year had accumulated a total of 121 on the ACE index. With two ongoing systems and more likely, we might well exceed 150 for the season. That's definitely above normal, but not record breaking.  A normal season will accumulate 66 to 111 points on the ACE scale.

ACE indexes for a season vary widely year to year.  It's been as low as about 20 in 1983 to around 250 in the destructive year of 2005.

This system isn't perfect, of course because it doesn't take into account damage suffered by us humans.  A wimpy tropical storm making landfall can cause a damaging flood. Meanwhile, a powerful, long lasting hurricane like Sam can avoid land altogether, causing little suffering for us landlubbers.

On the bright side, after a terrible first half of the season, when it seemed almost every tropical storm or hurricane that formed ended up hitting the United States, we've had a break.

The storms that formed over the past month or so have steered clear of the states. There's nothing on the immediate horizon that suggests anything else is coming. But the hurricane season lasts through November, so there's still time, unfortunately, for another punishing strike by a tropical storm or hurricane.