With hurricane season a few months away, here are the hurricane names for the potential storms in 2026.
The National Hurricane Center will release its official outlook on the upcoming season in May while Colorado State University will release its first season outlook in early April.
The 2025 season saw 13 named storms formed, 5 of those became hurricanes, of which 3 strengthened into major Category 5 hurricanes.
Here is the list of 21 names for the 2026 season:
Arthur
Bertha
Cristobal
Dolly
Edouard
Fay
Gonzalo
Hanna
Isaias
Josephine
Kyle
Leah
Marco
Nana
Omar
Paulette
Rene
Sally
Teddy
Vicky
Wilfred
The list of hurricane names is determined by the United Nations World Meteorological Organization. The NHC uses six lists in rotation and they are recycled every six years, so 2026’s list should show up again in 2032, unless that formula is deviated from, for any reason..
A long time ago, hurricanes were named randomly. The military, for example, started naming storms after their girlfriends and wives, but none of these choices were made public.
Then, the National Weather Service decided to give human names to hurricanes to quickly identify storms and make it easier for citizens and media to process warning messages.
They used the World War II Alphabet – Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy – but this created confusion because every year the storm names were the same.
A few years later, in 1953, US weather professionals started using female names, sorted alphabetically. In 1979, they began alternating the feminine designations with male names, recycling the list every six years.
Names of especially destructive hurricanes are usually retired with the offending name replaced by another name. Recently, the names Otto and Matthew were retired after causing extensive damage back in 2016.
Let’s hope that no hurricane names get retired in 2026, and that Vicky, Kyle, Bertha, and the rest of the gang aren’t planning to visit the Lowcountry this year.
Visit the NOAA for more hurricane information.
