Hurricane Epsilon (named storm # 26) has reached hurricane status in the month of December. It seems like the record breaking season of 2005 does not want to end. Many records were broken by this hurricane season, two being the number of named storms (27) and 14 hurricanes. The old records were 21 and 12, respectively, in 1933 and 1969, respectively.

edited to add formation of Zeta on December 30, 2005.

For for trivial purposes I thought it might be interesting to know how hurricanes etc come to be named and who gets to name them.

Quote:

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All hurricanes are given names. Why is that? To help us identify storms and track them as they move across the ocean. Remember, there can be more than one hurricane at a time and without naming them, we could get confused and which storm we're talking about.

For hundreds of years, hurricanes in the West Indies were named after the particular saint's day on which the hurricane occurred. An Australian meteorologist began giving women's names to tropical storms before the end of the 19th century. In 1953, the U.S. National Weather Service, which is the federal agency that tracks hurricanes and issues warnings and watches, began using female names for storms.

In 1979, both women and men's names were used. One name for each letter of the alphabet is selected, except for Q, U and Z. For Atlantic Ocean hurricanes, the names may be French, Spanish or English, since these are the major languages bordering the Atlantic Ocean where the storm occur.

So who decides what names are used each year? The World Meteorological Organization uses six lists in rotation. The same lists are reused every six years. The only time a new name is added is if a hurricane is very deadly or costly. Then the name is retired and a new name is chosen.

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From here.

Lots of records in 2005, it seems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_hurricane_records