Hot air?

One of my friends has just come back from Cuba, to a chorus of "oh my God, you're still alive, how was the hurricane?!" I've been watching the news updates from Florida with alarmed fascination, wondering how people cope so calmly with living in an area that periodically gets battered senseless. Me, I freaked every time someone twitched their nose when I was in Tokyo, so worried was I that I was going to find myself sitting at the epicentre of a major earthquake.

But for all my interest in Extreme Weather, it had never once crossed my mind to think about the names of hurricanes. Why is it Hurricane Frances and not Hurricane Julie or Hurricane Michael Antony? Well, now I know, and if you check out the link below, so will you.

Of course, now I'm wondering how the police make up their operation names, like Operation Bumblebee for a major drugs bust. Are they following a system like the meteorologists, or are they just making it up off the top of their heads? Does anybody know?...


The Perfect Storm Name


And if you want to know more about "the military's able-baker-charlie phonetic alphabet" referred to in the article, click below for an explanation.


The radiotelephony spelling alphabet