Why some hurricanes are named after women and others after men

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) call hurricanes by common names to facilitate communication. But why are some hurricanes get women's names and others - men's?

Researchers have found that hurricanes with female names cause significantly more deaths. The main reason for this effect, scientists say, is that storms with female names are perceived as less threatening, MailOnline writes. But in fact, the name of a hurricane has nothing to do with its intensity. Names are assigned alphabetically.

This is according to American scientists who studied storms from 1950 to 2012. In their study, they asked people to assess the threat of the named storms and found that people consider female names less threatening. And when a hurricane has a male name, people are more wary of it.

Scientists' analysis shows that changing the name of a strong hurricane from the masculine Charlie to the feminine Eloise can almost triple the death toll.

However, in reality, hurricane names are chosen not based on their expected strength, but in alphabetical order. Since there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, and 5 of them are not used, due to the rarity of names with these letters (Q, U, X, Y and Z), the lists consist of 21 names. They are used in alphabetical order: the first hurricane of the season is given a name that begins with A, the second - B, and so on.

"The problem is that a hurricane’s name has nothing to do with its severity. Names are assigned arbitrarily, based on a pre-determined list of alternating male and female names. IIf people in the path of a severe storm are judging the risk based on the storm’s name, then this is potentially very dangerous," explains lead author Kiju Jung, a doctoral student in marketing at the University of Illinois.

Previously, hurricanes in the United States were given only female names, a practice meteorologists of another era considered appropriate given the unpredictable nature of storms. However, in the late 1970s, due to the growing awareness of sexism in society, an alternative system of naming hurricanes using both male and female names was adopted.

Only verified information is available on OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!