Ed Dunham
Former Meteorologist & CFHC Forum Moderator (Ed Passed Away on May 14, 2017)
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Okay, here is a weather mind bender for you - and I don't know the answer - and I'm not so sure that anybody does, including the (and I'm not about to call them either). Remember, this is a hypothetical question.
Scenario: Its late in the season and we've already set a record with 23 named storms. On December 6th yet another TD forms and it intensifies and becomes Tropical Storm ?????. It rapidly intensifies to a Category V hurricane with the lowest pressure ever recorded in the Atlantic basin and a few days later makes landfall - a sure bet that this name will be retired!
The first part of the question is easy for many of you (maybe): What will be the name of the storm?
The second part of the question is the hard part: Would use this name? Even though the spelling is slightly different, phonetically it is pronounced the same. Now that should give you something to ponder over - any Mets want to chime in on this one?
Cheers,
ED
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FlaMommy
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im gonna take a shot and say its gonna be the first name of the next season...Andrea....dont shoot me if im wrong...lol 
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"Haven't thought of a witty one lately"
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Clark
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Well, storm #24 is set-up to be Charlie -- just like last year's , but with the -ie instead of the -ey at the end. That does set up all kinds of debates as to whether or not to go with the name...and since there's no way of telling what a given storm is going to do beforehand, plus that it develops so late in the season when any significant development is highly unlikely, I would imagine it would be called Charlie. Unless, of course, they decide to substitute a new name for it on the fly, which I wouldn't advocate because that would be sure to draw some unnecessary criticism upon the for "holding storm information from the public" beforehand. I don't see any way around it, unfortunately, but it would be a very touchy situation -- particularly if it were to hit Florida.
It probably would've been smartest to never have a name in the main lists that is similar to the phoenetic alphabet, particularly early in the lists, but it's not been often where we've even thought we might need to go to more names for more storms.
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yecatsjg
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What an interesting question.....let's hope we never have to really ask/answer it! (I know a lot of people who would object to any form of Charlie being used....)
Stacey
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Ed Dunham
Former Meteorologist & CFHC Forum Moderator (Ed Passed Away on May 14, 2017)
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This raises yet another interesting question: How do you retire a name from the phonetic alphabet? My guess is that you would have to append the year...and perhaps thats the smarter naming convention, i.e., instead of Alpha the name would be Alpha2005, Bravo2005, Charlie2005, Delta2005, etc.
Cheers,
ED
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Ryan
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i think that sounds a little "robotronic" like Harvey2005
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Clark
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I get the feeling, Ed, that it'd get retired as the particular name in the phoenetic alphabet without the year, but that we'd see some pressure towards a move to a rotating list of names, starting where you left off the previous season. It's not as easy to remember as A-Z, but it does have precedent (Western Pacific & elsewhere) and doesn't bring up as many pesky questions about why all letters don't have names, why we even need another list if we run out, and so on. It'd be a major shift, but I'd expect to see some pressure that way if it came to that.
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HanKFranK
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huh? i thought they were going to use greek letters. sure it wouldn't be Gamma?
and yeah, i'd go ahead and retire the letter. it'd take hundreds of years to use them all up. i don't think 22+ tropical cyclones in the atlantic will be commonplace any time soon.
HF 0646z05august
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LI Phil
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>>> On December 6th yet another TD forms and it intensifies and becomes Tropical Storm ?????. It rapidly intensifies to a Category V hurricane
Ed, you should make that date just a tad earlier...like November 6th
(shaking head) December 6th CAT V in the atlantic...LOL...ed must be watching reruns of the Day After Tomorrow again 
your point is well taken though...what would it be called and how could it be retired...
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Ed Dunham
Former Meteorologist & CFHC Forum Moderator (Ed Passed Away on May 14, 2017)
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I'm beginning to think that I shouldn't have asked the question since it was more from a curiosity point of view, i.e., not something that required an immediate solution. If it ever should happen (and it might), will solve the dilemma when the time comes. I agree with Clark that a rotating list would solve the problem - not sure that the countries in the Atlantic basin are ready to move toward that type of a solution though. Hank, it would be Golf, not Gamma. When a name is retired from the regular list for any given year, it is replaced with another - but the phonetic alphabet is a fixed list that really has nothing to do with weather (unless you are on air-to-ground radio with a pilot). The phonetic alphabet is used throughout the world by english speaking countries for air to ground communications - normally when radio reception is poor and clarity is needed. With the improved communications of the satellite age, the phonetic alphabet could eventually become a relic of the past, but at the moment it is a fixed list. The list was modernized quite a few years ago. In 1950 when the Weather Bureau (anybody else remember the Weather Bureau besides Old Sailor?) started to name tropical storms they started with the old phonetic alphabet. In 1953 they dropped the phonetic alphabet and started to use the names of women. In 1954 they started to retire the names of significant hurricanes, but they were thinking about the retirement of names a few years earlier. In 1950, the names Easy and King probably would have been retired if the standards of 1954 were applied...but they were names in the phonetic alphabet at that time, so the retirement of names didn't start until after the naming convention had changed.
Okay, thats the history lesson - which brings us back to my original question. This year has a chance (probably a good chance) of breaking the record of 21 storms set in 1933. If we get a 22nd storm, its name would be Alpha. Odds are that the storm would not amount to much and the issue would never arise - but what if it was a significant storm? For Phil: Yes, the odds are slim, however, I'll give you a different scenario: Its February 2005 and I've just forecasted a record breaking season - would you have believed it at that time? Well, I wouldn't have either. How about 7 named storms in July? Naw, you'd have thought that someone had slipped me a funny cig on my last cruise  . In meteorology, never say never.
Cheers,
ED
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LI Phil
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>>> For Phil: Yes, the odds are slim, however, I'll give you a different scenario: Its February 2005 and I've just forecasted a record breaking season - would you have believed it at that time?
Ed, if YOU had predicted it, i would have believed it...
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Lysis
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Thanks for posting this Ed. Granted… the odds of such a scenario are incredibly slim, as you all know. Humorously, a lot of people already erroneously spell as Charlie. We used to drive by about ten “**** you (forgive the explicative) Charlie” ’s, written on some guys plywood shutters on the way to school. Great thread, guys.
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cheers
Edited by Lysis (Sat Aug 06 2005 08:47 AM)
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HanKFranK
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for some reason i thought it would be the greek alphabet and not the military phonetic alphabet.
HF 0103z07august
that was post # 1000. probably like 2000 if you count the unregs going back through 2000. -HF
Edited by HanKFranK (Sat Aug 06 2005 09:08 PM)
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Lysis
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Congratulations on the millennium, Hank.
I think that is because most of the various newspapers and media outlets have been (apparently erroneously) saying that the Greek alphabet would be used as of late. I am a bit confused on that too. Considering the rarity of such an event occurring, you would think that they would come up with something relatively simple.
EDIT: hey, I used 'erroneous' in two consecutive posts.
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cheers
Edited by Lysis (Mon Aug 08 2005 08:37 AM)
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GuppieGrouper
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I believe if they run through the alphabet this year that they should start with 1-A 1-B,etc so that theses storms would never be confused with a normal season, and would not offend any culture race or creed.
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