Thursday, August 28, 2008

Who names hurricanes?

The World Meteorological Organization uses six rotating lists to name hurricanes. If a hurricane is particularly big and destructive it's name gets retired and is kicked out of the rotation. The practice began with an Australian meteorologist in the late 19th century. My two favorite retired names? Hortense and Roxanne. No wonder Sting wrote a song about her! Or, maybe the hurricane was named after Sting's song. It would be the latter. I just looked it up and hurricane Roxanne did her thing in 1995. Hortense followed on her heels in 1996.

(See photo of Roxanne above.)

1 comment:

Any Girl said...

Ha ha...funny post, random post...interesting to know...