The Atlantic hurricane season begins on June 1. It builds toward a peak sometime between mid-August and late October — with the historical date of greatest hurricane activity on September 9 — and ends November 30. Hurricanes begin as tropical storms, but they don't attract much attention until they get named.

A tropical storm gets a name when its winds hit 39 mph, and it becomes a hurricane if the winds hit 74 mph. The alphabetical naming began in 1953 and at first included only women’s names. But in 1979 men’s names were added. Every letter of the alphabet — except Q, U, X, Y, and Z — has six different names because the lists repeat themselves after six years. For a complete list of hurricane names, CLICK HERE.

The tropical storms that sometimes become named hurricanes originate in Africa. When hot, dry air over the Sahara desert encounters cooler, moister air over the area south of the Sahara — called the Sahel — the collision produces a low-pressure system that drifts out over the ocean.

Storm clouds form and if they cluster, the earth's rotation causes the system to spin counterclockwise. The warm, humid air above the ocean rushes upward into it and starts it spinning faster and faster. When the winds reach 20 mph, the cloud cluster becomes what's known as a tropical depression, which is the precursor of a tropical storm.

While the system is developing into whatever it's going to become, it's also moving westward and northward thanks to the easterly trade winds that predominate in the latitudes between the equator and 30 degrees north. If you look on a globe, you'll see that these storms travel right toward the southeastern United States.

When the first tropical storm gets strong enough to warrant a name, we start hearing about hurricanes in the media. It's always interesting to see which hurricanes are going to do what. A hurricane that's damaging enough might even have its name retired from the six year list.

So far we’ve lost almost fifty names. The letter C has lost the most, with eight hurricanes warranting retirement. Only the letters N, P, S, T, V, and W have survived intact. For a list of all the names that have been retired, CLICK HERE.

These names are no longer available for current or future hurricanes, but they are not lost. They — and the storms they named — have achieved a permanent place in hurricane history.

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