Alternative to Greek Alphabet

[Hurricanehink]

The Greek Alphabet can be a little confusing. People who don't know, yet listen to the news about the hurricanes, can get confused when there's an Alpha after Wilma, then Beta and Gamma. The biggest problem is retirement. In previous threads, they discussed omitting a letter, or leaving the list in tact if an Alpha causes tremendous damage. I propose they eliminate the Greek Alphabet for the hurricane list, and replace it with a 7th auxillary list. The names would be of ambiguous gender to keep the male/female pattern, yet could be retired without much harm. This is what I propose:

Avery
Brook
Casey
Devon
Everett
Farley
Gene
Hunter
Indy
Jamie
Kelly
Leigh
Morgan
Nicky
Ollie
Pat
Robin
Sam
Taylor
Vic
Wallis

The human names are kept, the retirement problem is solved, and you don't have to worry about people who don't know the Greek Alphabet.

If you have any other solutions, feel free to post them.

[bombarderoazul]

How about using native american names. After all we get the word Hurricane from the Maya civilisation.

[caneflyer]

A seventh list of regular names, one for the Atlantic and one for the eastern Pacific, is exactly what the NWS will be proposing to the WMO RA-IV committee this spring.

[HURAKAN]

I still like more the idea of the Greek names. They sound fun!

[P.K.]

Keep the Greek ones, afterall the letters get used all the time in met.

[Aslkahuna]

Even more so in Astronomy.

Steve

[Terrell]

The Greek Alphabet can be a little confusing. People who don't know, yet listen to the news about the hurricanes, can get confused when there's an Alpha after Wilma, then Beta and Gamma. The biggest problem is retirement. In previous threads, they discussed omitting a letter, or leaving the list in tact if an Alpha causes tremendous damage. I propose they eliminate the Greek Alphabet for the hurricane list, and replace it with a 7th auxillary list. The names would be of ambiguous gender to keep the male/female pattern, yet could be retired without much harm. This is what I propose:

Avery
Brook
Casey
Devon
Everett
Farley
Gene
Hunter
Indy
Jamie
Kelly
Leigh
Morgan
Nicky
Ollie
Pat
Robin
Sam
Taylor
Vic
Wallis

The human names are kept, the retirement problem is solved, and you don't have to worry about people who don't know the Greek Alphabet.

If you have any other solutions, feel free to post them.

I think that's a very good idea. Though for Lee you are using the feminine spelling.

[Alacane]

I suggest we take the year designation away, and just use the next name on the consecutive list. For example, Epsilon would have been named Ernesto (the 5th named storm from next year's list). This is what the Central Pacific, Northwest Pacific and Australian regions do. It would also allow us to use the names toward the bottom of the lists more often. This would avoid having so many names beginning with the same letter retired.

[Hurricanehink]

Going to the next list isn't too bad of an idea. They might run out of V and W names, but this way those names will get used. Thank you Terrell, but that was the only ambigous one I could find for L that isn't already in use.

[gilbert88]

Isn't "Les" ambiguous enough?

[senorpepr]

Personally, I have no issues with the current process. I think a new set of names would be useless considering that in recorded history we've only reached 22 named storms once. The public could really care less and I think the Greek letters are getting the job done now. If it isn't broke--don't fix it.

As for retiring Greek letters, that won't have much of an impact to the public either. (Although I think names are retired too liberally and I wouldn't be hurt if a Greek letter wasn't retired.) As it is now, few of the non-weather hobbists even know the compete list of regular names. Little, if any, press is given to storms that are far from land. For instance, consider Lee this year. You know little attention was given to Lee... even if Katrina wasn't such a strong storm, it would have been swept under the carpet. The general public wouldn't care if they hear about Katrina followed by Maria.

So, essentially, I see no need for a new back up list. The Greek letters are getting the job done very well.

[P.K.]

Little, if any, press is given to storms that are far from land. For instance, consider Lee this year. You know little attention was given to Lee... even if Katrina wasn't such a strong storm, it would have been swept under the carpet.

Lee was mentioned on the news over here although it may well have been in a report about Katrina, but they completely ignored Vince which I found really odd given when ever a TS forms near the US they pick it up straight away.

This year could be a one off (Just look at the 1962 season for the BoM when they had 38, yes that many, storms!)

[senorpepr]

Little, if any, press is given to storms that are far from land. For instance, consider Lee this year. You know little attention was given to Lee... even if Katrina wasn't such a strong storm, it would have been swept under the carpet.

Lee was mentioned on the news over here although it may well have been in a report about Katrina, but they completely ignored Vince which I found really odd given when ever a TS forms near the US they pick it up straight away.

This year could be a one off (Just look at the 1962 season for the BoM when they had 38, yes that many, storms!)

Even if Lee was mentioned, it was barely mentioned simply for the fact that it was active for such a short period of time. Chances are a person missed the couple (at most) of broadcasts referring to Lee.

[Hurricanehink]

Senorpepr, you are right in most ways, but there is still the public who is interested in hurricanes but is not a hurricane freak. At my lunch table in high school, my friends think hurricanes are amazing, but they don't study them like I do. Thus, they were very confused when Katrina was "followed" by Ophelia, then Rita. After Wilma, they all assumed it would be Xavier or something like that, but when Alpha came (yes, they actually paid attention to it), they were really confused. Those people would be equally confused if an Alpha kills 10,000 people in Florida (God forbid) and billions in damage, then another Alpha comes and causes great destruction in Texas. I don't think that should happen. Neither should Alpha be elimated and the next name will be Beta. What happens when the first 10 greek letters are retired? I just think the system has its flaws, though we might not see them in an inactive season.