1 More than a million people in the United States were told to leave their homes over the weekend as Hurricane (飓风) Dennis headed to the Gulf coast， after killing at least 15 people in the Caribbean Sea.
2 If you read the news often enough， you may notice that all hurricanes are given names. Why is that? Remember， there can be more than one hurricane operating at one time. Without naming them， we could get confused about which storm we're talking about.
3 For hundreds of years， hurricanes in the Caribbean were named after the particular religious day on which they occurred. One Australian meteorologist (气象学家) began giving women's names to tropical storms at the end of the 19t“ century. In 1953， the US National Weather Service， which is responsible for tracking hurricanes and issuing warnings， began using female names for storms. By 1979， both women and men's names were being used. One name for each letter of the alphabet (字母表) is selected， except for Q， U and Z.
4 So who decides which names are used each year? The World Meteorological Organization uses six lists in rotation， so each list is reused every six years.
5 Here's a list of the 2005 Atlantic hurricanes， according to the US National Hurricane Centre： Arlene， Bret， Cindy， Dennis， Emily， Franklin， Gert， Harvey， Irene， Jose， Katrina， Lee， Maria， Nate， Ophelia， Philippe， Rita， Stan， Tammy， Vince， Wilma.