Some of the agencies had begun using the new alphabet in their
communications, while others stuck to the old one. So the third storm of
the season was “Charlie” part of the time and the rest of the time some
wanted to call it “Coca.” At the end of the season there was no
agreement as to which phonetic alphabet should be used and there was
criticism for having continued an alphabet which was obsolete
internationally.
After a long discussion, military members of the conference suggested
adoption of girls’ names, which had been used successfully for typhoons
in the Pacific for several years. Just how this practice originated is
not known, but it was thought by some persons to have come from the book
_Storm_, by George R. Stewart, which was published in 1941. In this book
a fictitious Pacific storm is traced to the United States and its
effects on the people are narrated in the style of a novel. A young
weatherman at San Francisco, according to the story, called the storm
Maria. Also there was Wragge’s use of girls’ names for willy-willies in
Australia and Pan American Airway’s practice in connection with
hurricanes as early as 1938. At any rate, with these Pacific precedents,
the weathermen and hurricane hunters adopted the following list for 1953
for hurricanes in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico:
Alice
Barbara
Carol
Dolly
Edna
Florence
Gilda
Hazel
Irene
Jill
Katherine
Lucy
Mabel
Norma
Orpha
Patsy
Queen
Rachel
Susie
Tina
Una
Vicky
Wallis
This list worked perfectly in 1953; the public was pleased; the
communicators were happy about it; the newspapers thought it was
colorful; and use of the same names began to spread in Canada and some
of the countries to the southward. The same list was adopted with
enthusiasm for the 1954 season.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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