Storm Names

Since 1953, Atlantic tropical storms had been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane Center. They are now maintained and updated through a strict procedure by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization.

The six lists above are used in rotation and re-cycled every six years, i.e., the 2014 list will be used again in 2020. The only time that there is a change in the list is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity. If that occurs, then at an annual meeting by the WMO committee (called primarily to discuss many other issues) the offending name is stricken from the list and another name is selected to replace it. Several names have been retired since the lists were created. Here is more information the history of naming tropical cyclones and retired names.

If a storm forms in the off-season, it will take the next name in the list based on the current calendar date. For example, if a tropical cyclone formed on December 28th, it would take the name from the previous season's list of names. If a storm formed in February, it would be named from the subsequent season's list of names.

2020 Bertha

Start Date:	27 May 0202
End Date:	27 May 0202
Pressure Min:	1004
Wind Speed Max:	46
Storm Category:

Description:
Tropical Storm Bertha was a rapidly forming and short-lived off-season tropical storm that impacted the Eastern United States in late May 2020.[1] The storm and its precursor disturbance caused moderate flooding and flash flooding to Florida and South Carolina. The second named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, Bertha formed from a trough near the east coast of Florida on May 25. The storm was not considered likely to develop at the time, but in favor of warm sea surface temperatures over the Gulf Stream, quickly became a closed low and was designated a tropical storm 3 hours before its landfall in South Carolina. The storm would then move further inland to the Northeastern United States, providing heavy rainfall and tropical storm force winds across the region as a post-tropical storm, as well as severe thunderstorms and even a tornado.

In the event that more than twenty-one named tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin in a season, additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet.