Ack : ~ Gayatree G Nalwadad

A hypothetical situation where 20 executives board an airplane and are told that the flight that they are about to take is the first-ever to feature pilotless technology: It is an uncrewed aircraft.Each one of the CEOs is then told, privately, that their company’s software is running the aircraft’s automatic pilot system. Nineteen of the CEOs promptly leave the aircraft, each offering a different type of excuse.

One CEO alone remains on board the jet, seeming very calm indeed.Asked why he is so confident in this first uncrewed flight, he replies:
“If it’s the same software that runs my company’s IT systems, this plane won’t even take off”

This is called Confidence!

Have you ever wondered about the system used for naming hurricanes? Where did those names come from, anyway? Will we have to suffer through another “Hurricane Andrew”? The system is not that complicated.
Hurricanes used to be designated by a system of latitude-longitude, which was a great way for meteorologists to track them. However, once the public began receiving storm warnings and trying to keep track of a particular storm path, this got very confusing. A system of names to refer to them was much easier to track and remember.

In 1953, the National Weather Service picked up on the habit of Naval meteorologists of naming the storms after women. Ships were always referred to as female, and were often given women’s names. The storms’ temperament certainly seemed female enough, shifting directions at a whim on a moment’s notice. In 1979, male names were inserted to alternate with the female names,to the delight of women’s-libbers everywhere.

There are actually six lists of names in use for storms in the Atlantic. These lists rotate, one each year; the list of this year’s names will not be reused until 2011. The names get recycled each time the list comes up, with one exception: storms so devastating that reusing the name is inappropriate. In this case, the name is taken off the list and another name is used to replace it; there will not be another Hurricane Andrew, because Andrew has been replace by Alex on the list. Although it will not be an issue for five more years, the names of Frances, Ivan and Jeanne will probably go into the history books in 2010.

A storm must start as a Tropical Depression and move on to become a Tropical Storm before it is given a name. Once a storm is named, preparations for the possible hurricane should be well under way. Without further ado, here is the list of hurricane names for 2005:

Arlene
Bret
Cindy
Dennis
Emily
Franklin
Gert
Harvey
Irene
Jose
Katrina
Lee
Maria
Nate
Ophelia
Phillipe
Rita
Stan
Tammy
Vince
Wilma

One question I’ve heard a lot recently is “What happens if we run out of hurricane names?” If we’re unlucky enough to deplete the year’s supply of names we won’t, contrary to popular opinion, simply start using names from next year’s list. In that case, the National Hurricane Center will turn to the Greek alphabet and we’ll have Hurricanes Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, etc.