List of historical tropical cyclone names

Tropical cyclones are named for historical reasons and so as to avoid confusion when communicating with the public, as more than one tropical cyclone can exist at a time. Names are drawn in order from predetermined lists. They are usually assigned to tropical cyclones with one-, three-, or ten-minute windspeeds of at least 65 km/h (40 mph). However, standards vary from basin to basin, with some tropical depressions named in the western Pacific whilst tropical cyclones have to have gale-force winds occurring more than halfway around the center within the Australian and southern Pacific regions.

The official practice of naming tropical cyclones started in 1945 within the western Pacific. Naming continued through the next few years, and in 1950, names also started to be assigned to tropical storms forming in the northern Atlantic Ocean. In the Atlantic, names were originally taken from the World War II version of the Phonetic Alphabet, but this was changed in 1953 to use lists of women's names which were created yearly. Around this time naming of tropical cyclones also began within the southern and central parts of the Pacific. However naming did not begin in the eastern Pacific until 1969, with the original naming lists designed to be used year after year in sequence. In 1960, naming also began in the southwestern Indian Ocean, and in 1963 the Philippine Meteorological Service started assigning names to tropical cyclones that moved into or formed in their area of responsibility. Later in 1963, warning centers within the Australian region also commenced naming tropical cyclones. In 2004, the India Meteorological Department began naming cyclones that formed in the northern Indian Ocean, and in 2011, the Brazilian Navy Hydrographic Center started using a naming list to name tropical cyclones over the southern Atlantic Ocean.


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