Although the hurricane season in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and north Atlantic region lasts officially from June until November, it is mostly in August and September that the storms become troublesome enough to merit worldwide notice, as in the case of Bonnie's recent incursions on the eastern seaboard of the United States.
Bonnie was the second member of the 1998 family. Alex, the first, was comparatively inoffensive, and their younger siblings, most of them as yet unborn, have already been named in the conventional alphabetical order; after Bonnie come Charley, Danielle, Earl, Frances, Georges, Hermine, Ivan, Jeanne, Karl, Lisa, Mitch, Nicole, Otto, Paula, Richard, Shary, Tomas, Virginie and Walter.
The practice of giving names to tropical storms of particular severity became common about the beginning of the present century. The names at first were chosen arbitrarily, often at the whim of an individual forecaster; storms might be named after wives or girlfriends, or after some person prominent or topical at the time. In 1949, for example, a severe storm affected Florida when President Harry S. Truman was on a visit there, and the media called it "Hurricane Harry".
By the early 1950s, however, it became evident that some order was desirable in matters such as these, and it was agreed internationally to give hurricanes female names in alphabetical order from the beginning of each year. In 1979 this somewhat male chauvinist approach was changed to allow hurricanes to be alternately male and female. And to make things indisputably fair, the gender of the first storm of each season alternates as well: if Arlene heads the list in one year, then 12 months later Allen or Alberto lead the field.
Six semi-permanent lists of hurricane names exist, which means that each set is repeated six years after it was used before, the current one having been last used in 1992. On that occasion, however, Andrew caused such widespread devastation as it crossed the state of Florida that, as sometimes happens, the name was "retired" and a replacement found - in this case, Alex. This allows hurricanes that have attained some notoriety to be referred to without confusion in the years to come.
The list of hurricanes for each year allows for 21 storms - the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z, being omitted because the choice of names would be severely limited. And if, as has never happened yet, a season should turn out to be a particularly stormy one with more than 21 hurricanes, then the Greek alphabet, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and so on, will be used to name the extra storms.