2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season List Of Names

MIAMI, FL — We've already used up the names Arthur and Bertha this year for tropical storms that came ahead of Monday's official launch of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, but there are many other names that we will be getting to know all too well this summer and fall.

"Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older, more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods," according to the National Hurricane Center. "These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea." See also 2020 Hurricane Season Brings Uncertainty, Sleepless Nights

Weather experts said hurricanes in the West Indies were named after saints for several hundred years based on the particular saint's day on which the hurricane occurred.

An Australian meteorologist is credited with staring the practice of giving women's names to tropical storms before the end of the 19th century.

Don't miss 2020 hurricane updates in Florida as they are announced. Sign up for Patch news alerts and newsletters.

That practice continued until 1978 when men's names were added to the mix for the Eastern North Pacific. Men got their due for the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico in the following year.

Storm names are retired if they were so deadly or destructive that the future use of the name would be insensitive — otherwise names are reused on a six-year cycle.

Irma sucker punched Florida in 2017. Harvey kicked Texas in the gut that same year as Maria brought Puerto Rico to its knees.

Now, they're all enjoying a well-deserved retirement in the annals of history.

Here is the list of this year's remaining Atlantic storm names after Arthur and Bertha:

• Cristobal
• Dolly
• Edouard
• Fay
• Gonzalo
• Hanna
• Isaias
• Josephine
• Kyle
• Laura
• Marco
• Nana
• Omar
• Paulette
• Rene
• Sally
• Teddy
• Vicky
• Wilfred