Naming Storms and Remembering Hurricane Carla

Someone asked me recently when the tradition of naming tropical storms began, the kind of Cliff Clavenesque trivia at which I usually excel, but I didn't know.

Turns out that the current naming format began in 1953, but more about that later.

All I knew for sure before I looked it up was that they didn't have names in 1900 when the killer Galveston Hurricane hit, and they did have official names by 1961 because I remember Hurricane Carla, vividly.

Carla made landfall on September 11th, 1961, the second most powerful storm ever to strike the Texas coast, and even 150 miles inland in San Antonio, it was a big deal. I was in 6th grade at Cambridge Elementary School there where school had just started for the year a week before.
But late the morning of the 11th, the weather became such a big deal that our teacher led us all to the school library, where we were to wait for our parents to pick us up. This was mildly exciting because we were going home already and we hadn't even had lunch! I remember it was so dark that the street lights were on. We'd never seen it so dark in the daytime.

Until that morning, all I knew about weather I'd overheard from grownups, mostly talking about drought, especially throughout the 50's....weather sometimes kept us from being able to play outside, but like most city kids, that was about the extent of my interest in weather. After Carla, I caught the weather bug and tried to set up a little weather station in the front yard.

Anyway, I looked up the subject of "hurricane names" because this month seems to be all about hurricanes; Hurricane Earl was just last week, and today Tropical Storm Hermine may become a Category 1 Hurricane before it comes ashore, probably near Brownsville, Texas, probably tonight. We do need the rain, but the businesses on the coast have enough challenges.

So here's the straight dope on hurricane names...

To help in their identification, the practice of systematically naming tropical storms and hurricanes was initiated in 1953 by the United States National Hurricane Center. Naming is now maintained by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Thanks to Wikipedia for the info; as always, I hope it's correct!