Tropical storm called Don weakens as another named Hillary gathers strength

“While a weakening Tropical Storm Don disintegrates as it nears the Caribbean, meteorologists are eyeing a potential storm in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The Pacific system is forecast to become a named storm later Tuesday, and the next name on the Pacific list is.... Hillary,” the USA Today reported on Tuesday. The storms’ names are strikingly similar to those of the 2016 U.S. presidential candidates.


The U.S. National Hurricane Center said that Don was not expected to last beyond Wednesday. However, the agency forecast that a tropical depression would develop into a storm later Tuesday. If it does, it will be given a name from a predetermined list. The next storm, which will be named “Hillary,” was not forecast to affect any land areas, though the remnants of Hurricane Fernanda could bring rain to Hawaii over the weekend or early next week.


Max Mayfield, a former National Hurricane Center director, told the Associated Press the names were purely a coincidence.

Hurricane names are determined years ahead of time by the World Meteorological Organization. Eastern Pacific storms are pulled from a separate list than Atlantic storms. Don was the fourth on the Atlantic storms list for this year, while Hillary was the eighth on the Eastern Pacific storms list.

Yong Park parky@donga.com