What’s in a name? In the case of hurricanes in the Pacific, you could answer with another cliché: location, location, location.
The reason that the hurricanes curently menacing the Hawaiian Islands are named Iselle and Julio, rather than, say, Iolana and Keoni, is because they formed in the Eastern North Pacific. Their origin prompted the National Weather Service to assign them names from that region’s six-year cycle of 24-name alphabetic lists.
If the storms had formed in the Central North Pacific, they would have received a more Hawaiian-sounding name — à la 1992’s Category 4 Hurricane Iniki and 1982’s Category 1 Iwa — from a different, much shorter set of names. There’s yet another set of five, 27-name lists for storms forming in the Western North Pacific, contributed by 14 nations with interests in the area, including the United States — but due to prevailing winds those storms don’t tend to end up in Hawaiian waters.
On the six lists for storms generated in the eastern Pacific, names starting with Q or U are not included and — not doubt due to the fortunate infrequency of needing to use all the monikers in a given year — the lists share alternating names starting with X, Y and Z: Xavier/Xina, Yolanda/York, Zeke/Zelda. The 2014 hurricane list, incidentally, draws on the first name in each of those pairs.
The relative rarity of such severe storms in the Central North Pacific is reflected in the fact that the weather service relies on only four, 12-name alphabetic lists, and instead of being cycled through annually, one list of names must be exhausted before the next one comes into service.
Of course, the 12 names also reflect that there are only 12 letters of the Hawaiian alphabet, if you exclude the ʻokina (glottal stop), which functions as a consonant. The names Iniki and Iwa actually came from the Hawaiian words ʻiniki (sharp and piercing) and ʻiwa (frigatebird, which in turn takes its name from the Hawaiian word for “thief”).
Should a tropical storm form in the Central North Pacific this year, it would be called Ana, which the National Weather Service helpfully notes is pronounced “AH-nah.” (Which reminds me: Someone should tell the Weather Channel Iwa is not pronounced “ee-WAH” but “ee-vah”.)
According to NWS, subsequent significant storms in 2014 would be called/pronounced:
But given the current tempests, let’s hope we don’t have to worry about pronouncing those names anytime soon. Having first to keep an eye on Genevieve (which became the fourth super typhoon of 2014 after passing south of Midway and crossing the international dateline), then brace for Iselle (approaching Hilo as I write this) while still awaiting Julio (expected to weaken some before arriving Friday), is more than enough for any population.
— Jeanne Cooper