Before Debbie came Caleb, Blanche and Alfred. How Australia’s cyclone got her name
The process of choosing a moniker for storms comes from a formal system managed by the World Meteorological Organisation, with 10 global regions submitting names
The huge storm that tore through parts of northeastern Australia this week was almost called Caleb instead of Debbie. The next one will be named Ernie.
The process of choosing a moniker for storms comes from a formal system managed by the World Meteorological Organisation, with 10 global regions submitting names.
“The practice of naming storms (tropical cyclones) began years ago in order to help in the quick identification of storms in warning messages because names are presumed to be far easier to remember than numbers and technical terms,” the WMO website said.
The space station crew captured Tropical Cyclone Debbie from space as they flew over it on March 27. pic.twitter.com/4rKADAI0l9— Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) March 28, 2017
They used to be arbitrarily picked, but by the middle of last century the practice of using female names began, with meteorologists later moving to an alphabetic list.