As Floridians come to terms with the devastation of Hurricane Milton this morning, one thing is clear: the name Milton will long conjure painful memories for Floridians, alongside Helene, Debby and Ian.
All of these names, and many others, have become associated with death and billions of dollars in property damage.
But how do hurricanes get their names?
They are predetermined years in advance by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The WMO keeps six lists of 21 names in alphabetic order that are rotated every six years.
Hurricane Milton hammered Florida yesterday, bringing up to 20 inches of rain, 100 mph wind gusts and a deadly spate of tornadoes to the sunshine state
Letters Q, U, X, Y and Z have been excluded due to the rarity of such names, and incredibly damaging storms have their names retired and replaced with a new name starting with the same letter.
In the event that the number of named storms exceeds 21, the WMO uses its supplemental list of names.
This is a new change to the system. Until 2021, the agency used Greek letters to refer to tropical storms when their list of names ran out.
But the committee did away with this practice over concerns of confusion, as the letters Zeta, Eta and Theta sounded too similar.
There’s a chance that the number of named storms could exceed the WMO’s list this year, as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted as many as 25 named storms for the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.
Milton is the 13th named storm of the 2024 season, which has seen four tropical storms and nine hurricanes so far.
The storm made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane near Sarasota, Florida around 8:30pm ET on Wednesday.
Milton is now moving back out to sea, leaving more than three million people without power and four confirmed dead in its wake.
Names for hurricanes are predetermined years in advance by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The WMO keeps six lists of 21 names in alphabetic order that are rotated every six years
Milton is the 13th named storm of the 2024 season, which has seen four tropical storms and nine hurricanes so far
It is likely that Milton will have its name retired at the end of the season.
According to the National Hurricane Center, a hurricane name gets retired when ‘a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for obvious reasons of sensitivity.’
A few notable retired names include Harvey, Maria and Irma in 2017, Sandy in 2012, Katrina in 2005, Frances in 2004, Andrew in 1992 and Hugo in 1989.
These storms are remembered for not only for the immediate destruction and the loss of life they caused, but for the lasting impact they had on communities and infrastructure.
For example, nearly two decades later, many residents of New Orleans are still suffering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina – especially those who belong to marginalized communities.
The list of names for the 2024 hurricane season includes Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto, Francine, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Milton, Nadine, Oscar, Patty, Rafael, Sara, Tony, Valerie and William.
The earliest evidence of named tropical storms comes from Puerto Rico during the 16th century.
People from the island named hurricanes after the Roman Catholic Saint that represented the day the hurricane struck.
The first record of a named tropical storm to hit Puerto Rico is Hurricane San Roque, which hit the southwest part of the island in August 1508.
Puerto Ricans continued this tradition for centuries, up until the 1960s.
The first storm not named after a Saint was tropical storm Frances, which made landfall on the island on October 2, 1961.
But in the US, scientists tracked tropical storms and hurricanes by year and the order in which they occurred during that season up until the 1950s, according to the National Ocean Service.
However, this system proved to be confusing, disorganized and difficult to convey to the general public.
In 1950, the United Nations established WMO and three years later, the agency decided to use everyday names to make tracking hurricanes and conveying information about them to the public simpler and more efficient.
Storms are typically named when they reach tropical storm status, which means that they achieve wind speeds of 39 to 73 mph.
When wind speeds reach 74 mph or higher, the storm is classified as a hurricane.
At first, only female names were given to tropical storms and hurricanes.
This practice was borrowed from the military’s phonetic alphabet, according to Convoy of Hope, a humanitarian non-profit organization.
But feminist in the 1960s took issue with using on female names for destructive natural disasters.
By 1978, both male and female names were used to identify Northern Pacific storms, and this was later adopted in 1979 for storms in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.