Today, June 1st, marks the first day of the 2010 hurricane season. This will run for six months, ending November 30th. Here are a few facts about hurricanes, as well as a few helpful websites that I’d like to share with you.
Did you know that for hundreds of years, hurricanes in the West Indies were named after the particular saint’s day on which the storm made landfall? Using a woman’s name became customary after a novel called “Storm” was written in 1941 by author George R. Stewert. In 1951 the United States adopted the plan to name storms after the phonetic alphabet…Able, Baker, Charlie…But, then in 1953 the weather sevice returned to only using female names. This officially ended in 1978, when some believe was due in part to the feminist movement, when names from both genders were used to designate storms in the Pacific. One year later, male and female names were included for the Atlantic Ocean storms, too! It has remained that way ever since. Once a system with a counter-clockwise rotation is identified, and a sustained wind of 39 mph is measured, the storm is named. A list of this year’s names, as well as other good information for storm preparedness can be found on The National Hurricane Center’s website.
I am also including, for those of us in Naples Florida, a link to Collier County’s Emergency Management website. This site offers important suggestions such as having a family plan, among other things. Keep in mind, this blog post was not wriiten to alarm you. Hurricanes are a fact of nature. Consider this: We are notified days in advance of an upcoming storm. All in all, we are very fortunate to live in paradise…we just want you to be prepared!
