Who names the Hurricanes???

For sometime now, I had known that the Hurricanes in US are named alphabetically. There was still one question unanswered "Who names the Hurricanes?". I did not bother to research more after my friend who has deep interests in the geological changes et al told me that its just the media that names it.

Today, I was checking on the latest Hurricane Wilma on the weather channel and CNN, when I stumbled upon the website of National Hurricane Center of United States. I found loads of information on hurricanes, the most deadliest, costliest and intense hurricanes in the US.

I also found, now the actual and true info on how they name the hurricanes. They have 6 lists of names, each list has names starting with 21 different alphabets. This lists gets used over and over again, i.e. a list used in 2005 will be used again in 2011.The only time that there is a change in the list is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity. Recent removals from the list are from 2004 - Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne. Following the trend, Katrina will definitely be axed out after this year.

Now, the one info that did not surprise me...The lists featured only women's names until 1979, when men's and women's names were alternated. Typical US Style...huh.

For more info check out this link on Hurricane Names