The Great Galveston Hurricane
November 16, 2012 Written by Kaine McAlister
An Introduction to Hurricanes
Formation and Strength of a Hurricane
Naming and Categorizing
When a hurricane has formed it will get a name and a category. From 1950 to 1962 tropical storms were identified by the phonetic alphabet. Then in 1953 the US Weather Bureau switched to using women names. Men began to think it wasn't fair that their names wasn't apart of the list and then the World Meteorological Organization took over and added six lists of different names that alternate each year. If a hurricane does to much damage the names is removed and replaced. In the picture to the right is of damage from the Great Galveston Hurricane. In the 1900 they could not track hurricanes like when can now so this hurricane was completely unexpected. Hurricanes are then categorized by the Saffir Simpson scale from category one through five by wind speed, air pressure, storm surge, and damage. In category one the wind speed is 74 to 95 mph, category two is 96 to 110 mph, category three is 111 to 130 mph, category four is 131 to 155 mph, and finally category five is 155 mph or greater.