Re: Isabel - Why female storm names?

Thanks so much Martin.

It is fair to distribute the naming pracitce
and not discriminate in terms of gender,colour, race, religion etc.
Reason being that the names are publicly accessed by
newsmedia etc. If it was only accessed by scientists
it wouldn't be that much of an issue i believe.

a3

Martin H. Booda wrote:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, a3xter  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Hi
> > I wondered why storm names always have female names
> > (correct me if i am wrong).
>
>
> You're wrong.  Correction follows.
>
>
> >                           Where does that originate from?
>
> Originally, tropical storms were given the names of Saints, based on the
> Saint's Day upon which the particular storm occurred.  Thus the storm
> which struck Puerto Rico on July 26, 1825...Saint Anne's Day...was called
> "Hurricane Santa Ana", and two storms which hit the island on Sep. 13
> (Saint Philip's Day) in 1876 and 1928 were called San Felipe the First and
> San Felipe the Second.  Clement Wragge, an Australian meteorologist, began
> assigning the names of female suffragist politicians to storms over a hundred
> years ago (which caused some interesting headlines...e.g. "Mary wends random
> destructive path" etc.), but it didn't become common practise until WWII
> when Navy and Army Air Force meteorologists adopted the same practise.
> Briefly, in the early '50's, storms were given phonetic alphabet designations
> (Able, Baker, Charlie), but in 1953 the alphabetically-ordered women's names
> convention was adopted.  This lasted for a quarter of a century until men's
> and women's names were alternated.  Just last month, Rep. Shiela Jackson Lee,
> D-Texas, declared her desire that a new convention "would try to be inclusive
> of African-American names" such as...her suggestions...Keisha, Jamal and
> Deshawn.  In the Pacific, the names of storms are not limited to those of
> human beings; they've named storms after species of flowers, oxen and fish,
> sea and storm gods, airports, mountains and even food dishes.
>
>
> > The only explanation i thought of was not very pc:
> > Women are like storms: They come into your life real quick,
> > turn everything upsidedown and when they leave you are left
> > with nothing.
>
> It's been noted that some of the recent male-named storms seem to wander
> about as if they're afraid to ask directions, blow through without sticking
> around for too long, and produce a great deal of strong wind...