National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Naming hurricanes helps eliminate confusion when more than one storm is brewing in the Atlantic Ocean at a time.

For several hundred years, hurricanes in the West Indies were named after the particular saint's day on which the storm occurred. Clement Wragge, an Australian meteorologist, began giving hurricanes women's names before the end of the 19th century. Naming hurricanes for women became common practice during World War II as Air Force and Navy meteorologists plotted weather over the Pacific Ocean and had to track many storms at once. In 1953, the National Weather Service officially began using female names for storms. In 1979, male and female names were included for Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico storms. Names are retired if the storms that bore them were particularly violent. There will never be another storm named Andrew.

Storm Names for 2000:

Alberto
Beryl
Chris
Debby
Ernesto
Florence
Gordon
Helene
Isaac
Joyce
Keith
Leslie
Michael
Nadine
Oscar
Patty
Rafael
Sandy
Tony
Valerie
William