NAUGHTY German children live in constant fear of Bertha. This mythological Teutonic lady is a kind of bogey person with an elongated iron nose and one large foot who comes in the dead of night to wreak terrible vengeance on those guilty of children's misdemeanours. Last week, however, the Southern United States had their own particular Bertha to contend with she was not mythical, but meteorological a hurricane that killed five people in the Caribbean, before continuing on its destructive way towards the Carolinas.
Although the hurricane season in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and North Atlantic region lasts officially from June until November, it is mostly in August and September that they actively become troublesome enough to attract worldwide notice. Arthur was the first of the current season, and was comparatively inoffensive. Bertha was the second member of the family her siblings, still unborn, have already been named in the conventional alphabetical order and, as always nowadays, will be alternately male and female. Those still presumed to come in 1996 are Cesar, Diana and Edouard Fran, Gustav and Hortense Isidore, Josephine, Klaus and Lili Marco and Nana Omar and Paloma Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky and Wilfred.
Six semi-permanent lists of hurricane names exist, which means that each set is repeated six years after it was used before, the current one having been last used in 1990. The names of very major storms are "retired" and replacements found, so that the hurricane in question can be referred to without confusion in the years to come. It is unlikely for example that we will see another Hurricane Andrew after the havoc caused by the storm of that name in 1992, or Gilbert, who created similar chaos in 1988.
Hurricanes develop over the warm ocean waters just north of the Equator, and in the context of the current interest in global warming the 1996 season will be watched with great interest by meteorologists to see if it equals or exceeds in its activity that of 1995. Last year, you may remember, was remarkable for having no less than 19 hurricanes, more than in any other single year bar one, since records began in 1870 the exception was 1933 when there were 21. It is true, of course, that the advent of satellites in the last 35 years or so has made mid Atlantic hurricanes easier to spot so, although we had no way of knowing, it is possible that there may have been even more than 21 in some forgotten hurricane season in the dim and distant past.