These Are The Hurricanes That May Hit Long Island This Year

The start of hurricane season is still a few months off, but the names of all the storms that could potentially batter Long Island have been chosen. And some from 2017 have been retired.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is the group that comes up with the names for hurricanes. It uses a rotating system that uses the same names every few years. However, if a storm is bad enough, the WMO retires them. That's why there will never be another Hurricane Sandy (at least in name, anyway).

Because of the damage they caused in 2017, the WMO retired the names Harvey, Irma, Maria and Nate from its list. Here are the names that are in rotation for this year:

• Alberto
• Beryl
• Chris
• Debby
• Ernesto
• Florence
• Gordon
• Helene
• Isaac
• Joyce
• Kirk
• Leslie
• Michael
• Nadine
• Oscar
• Patty
• Rafael
• Sara
• Tony
• Valerie
• William

The WMO uses a few rules for its names. It alternates between traditional male and female names for each storm, and it doesn't use very letter of the alphabet — it uses 21 letters and omits some of the rarer ones, like Q and X.

In order to become named, a weather system has to grow into a tropical storm, which has sustained winds of at least 39 mph.

Meteorologists are predicting a slightly above normal hurricane season for this year, which would be less than the 2017 season. AccuWeather meteorlogists are predicting 12 to 15 named storms this year, compared to 17 in 2017.

According to the WMO, 2017 was a record-setting season. Of the 17 named storms, 10 became hurricanes and six reached "major hurricane" status, which is a Category 3 storm or higher. For the first time since hurricanes were recorded, three Category 4 storms made landfall on the US.

Photo: NASA