Hurricane Season starts June 1.
Atlantic hurricane storm names for 2026 are:
Tropical cyclones are a dangerous natural hazard and occur all around the world. Naming tropical cyclones has proven to be the fastest way to communicate warnings and raise public awareness and preparedness. Assigning names to tropical cyclones makes tracking and discussing specific storms more straightforward, especially when multiple storms are active simultaneously. Naming also helps to avoid confusion among meteorologists, media, emergency management agencies and the public. Additionally, naming tropical cyclones can aid historical record-keeping and research on storm behaviour and impacts.
Historically, storms have been named for a long time, but haphazardly and after the fact. For example, an Atlantic storm that ripped the mast off a boat named Antje would become known as Antje's hurricane. As weather forecasting developed as a science, storms were identified by their latitude-longitude. However, using short, distinctive names – in written and spoken communications – proved quicker and less subject to error. Those were essential considerations when exchanging detailed storm information with hundreds of widely scattered weather stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea.
Using female names for storms started in the middle of the 20th century. Then, in the pursuit of a more organized and efficient system, meteorologists in the North Atlantic decided to identify storms using names from an alphabetical list: the first storm in the year would be given a name that begins with A, like Anne, the second B, like Betty, etc. As of 1953, the National Hurricane Center, a division of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), provided the name lists for Atlantic tropical storms. In 1979, male names were introduced, alternating with the female names.
WMO has now developed strict procedures to determine a list of tropical cyclone names. There are different rules for naming cyclones in different parts of the world. In some places like the Atlantic and Southern Hemisphere, cyclones are named alphabetically, alternating men's and women's names. In other regions, names follow the alphabetical order of the countries.
When selecting a new name, consideration is given to certain factors:
