Why you'll never hear of a hurricane with these names
There has never been a Hurricane Quinn or a Hurricane Ursula. Why?
The World Meteorological Organization skips the letters Q and U when selecting names for the hurricane list each year, going only from A to W, so you won’t find X, Y, or Z either.
The international committee comes up with 21 names that could appear each year in batches of six years.
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So why do hurricanes even need names? It may seem a bit silly.
The simple explanation is that naming hurricanes makes it easier to communicate information about them to the public. Who wants to keep track of Tropical Depression 11 or distinguish it from Tropical Depression 9? A name clarifies which storm the information pertains to, which is essential when there’s an emergency approaching.
(The list of names for the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season)
It also means that if you share the same name as a hurricane, a weather reporter might track you down to sing a song.
Hurricane names are retired if a storm is so deadly or costly that it wouldn’t be appropriate to reuse the name. This decision is made by a committee that can remove the name from the list.