page_title: Tropical cyclone naming
section_title: Eastern Pacific Ocean
hierarchical_section_title: Tropical cyclone naming / Eastern Pacific Ocean
caption_attribution_description: English: Hurricane Barbara near peak intensity in the Eastern Pacific Ocean on July 2, 2019
context_page_description: Tropical cyclones and subtropical cyclones are named by various warning centers to simplify communication between forecasters and the general public regarding forecasts, watches, and warnings. The names are intended to reduce confusion in the event of concurrent storms in the same basin. Generally once storms produce sustained wind speeds of more than 33 knots, names are assigned in order from predetermined lists depending on which basin they originate. However, standards vary from basin to basin: some tropical depressions are named in the Western Pacific, while tropical cyclones must have a significant amount of gale-force winds occurring around the centre before they are named in the Southern Hemisphere.
  Before the formal start of naming, tropical cyclones were named after places, objects, or saints' feast days on which they occurred. The credit for the first usage of personal names for weather systems is generally given to the Queensland Government Meteorologist Clement Wragge, who named systems between 1887 and 1907.
context_section_description: Within the Eastern Pacific Ocean, there are two warning centers that assign names to tropical cyclones on behalf of the World Meteorological Organization when they are judged to have intensified into a tropical storm with winds of at least 34 kn (39 mph; 63 km/h). Tropical cyclones that intensify into tropical storms between the coast of Americas and 140°W are named by the National Hurricane Center (NHC/RSMC Miami), while tropical cyclones intensifying into tropical storms between 140°W and 180° are named by the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC/RSMC Honolulu). Significant tropical cyclones have their names retired from the lists and a replacement name selected at the next World Meteorological Organization Hurricane Committee.
  The current naming scheme began with the 1978 season, one year before the Atlantic basin (and which anomalously used the list that will be used next in 2024, rather than the one for 2020). As with the Atlantic basin, it uses alternating women's and men's names, and also includes some Spanish and a few French names. Before then, only women's names were used. Because Eastern Pacific hurricanes mainly threaten western Mexico and Central America, the lists contain more Spanish names than the Atlantic lists.
caption: Hurricane Barbara near peak intensity in July 2019
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