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American Morning

Ask CNN: How are Hurricanes Named?

Aired July 20, 2001 - 10:33   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NEAL TOMASIN: Hello, I'm Neal Tomasin from West New York, New Jersey, and I'd like to know: How are hurricanes named?

MAX MAYFIELD, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Under the United Nations, there is something called the WMO, the World Meteorological Organization. And it's divided up into different regions around the globe. We have a hurricane committee, and this committee gets together every year and comes up with an operational plan.

Within that plan we have these six lists of name for each basin. We have six lists for the Atlantic Basin and six lists for the East Pacific Basin. We'll start with the letter "A" on a given list and go down as far as we need to in the alphabet, and then we'll recycle that same list six years from now.

If we have a hurricane that causes a large loss of life or a lot of damage, we'll retire that name and replace it with a similar name. So if we retire, say, a prince name, for example, it will be replaced with a like prince name.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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