Question
When did the practice of naming hurricanes begin, and where did the word hurricane come from?
Answer
Native Americans called these storms Hurakons, after “a great spirit who commanded the east wind.” Spanish explorers adopted the word and then began giving hurricanes the names of patron saints on whose feast days the storms occurred. Later, hurricanes were identified by their longitude and latitude. A weatherman in Australia is credited with being the first to assign names to tropical storms. By World War II, meteorologists in the U.S. military named storms after their girlfriends and wives. The first storm in the Atlantic Ocean named for a man was Hurricane Bob.
ADVERTISEMENT
