Atlantic Hurricane Season: Storm Names for 2022

Weather experts are considering changing the dates of hurricane season but for now, the Atlantic hurricane season is upon us and the official start date is June 1, 2022 and will go through November 30, 2022. This year the National Hurricane Center's list of names for the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season includes names from Alex to Walter.

Forecasters name a storm when it strengthens to "tropical" or "subtropical". Weather experts start at the beginning of the list and move down the list as storms develop throughout the season.

Weather systems are named when they become a tropical depression. They can graduate to a tropical storm and then to a hurricane, keeping their given name throughout the life of the storm.

Storm names are presented by the World Meteorological Organization. The organization is very conscientious in making sure the names used are non-controversial.

Storms were first named in 1953 and to date, 94 names have been retired. In 2020, there were so many storms, forecasters ran out of names.

The worst hurricanes in history:

The most expensive hurricane in U.S. history was Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Katrina first made landfall on the Florida coast and went on to hit the Louisiana-Mississippi coastline as a Category 3 hurricane.

(science.howstuffworks.com, national hurricane center, nola.com)