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 Dolly

Start Date:	22 Jun 2020
End Date:	22 Jun 2020
Pressure Min:	1002
Wind Speed Max:	40
Storm Category:

Description:
On June 19, the NHC began monitoring an area of disturbed weather off the southeastern U.S. coast for possible subtropical development in the short term. Slowly moving northwest, the system developed into a more defined non-tropical low pressure system by early on June 21.However, at the time, the low pressure system was not considered likely to develop due to unfavorable sea surface temperatures. The system's circulation slowly grew more defined throughout the day and some thunderstorms began to develop near the circulation, but the system exited the warmer waters of the Gulf Stream later that same evening and began to lose any convection that developed. Contrary to predictions, the low moved south back into the Gulf Stream in the afternoon of June 22, and new thunderstorm activity began to fire near the circulation. The low's convective activity rapidly became more defined and well organized while the circulation became closed, prompting the National Hurricane Center to upgrade the system into Subtropical Depression Four at around 21:00 UTC on June 22. On June 23, the system's wind field had contracted significantly, becoming more characteristic of a tropical cyclone, while also strengthening further with winds to gale force, allowing the NHC to upgrade the system and designate it as Tropical Storm Dolly at approximately 16:15 UTC with winds of 45 mph (72 km/h). This event marked the third-earliest occurrence of the fourth named storm in the calendar year on record, behind only Tropical Storm Debby of 2012 and Tropical Storm Danielle of 2016. However, Dolly's peak intensity proved to be short-lived as its central convection began to diminish while it drifted over colder ocean waters, and the storm consequently weakened. At 15:00 UTC on June 24, Dolly became a post-tropical cyclone, with any remaining convection displaced well to the system's south and the remaining circulation exposed.

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.