Hurricane Irma is a hurricane that currently threatens the Caribbean Islands and Florida . It is one of the most powerful that have been developed in the eastern Atlantic.
However, Irma is not the most powerful, as we can see in the following video that compares the largest hurricanes in history.
Typhoon Tip , nearly three times the size of Irma, was the largest and most intense cyclone on record to date. Due to its power, gusts of wind of 305 kilometers per hour were registered, remaining active for almost 15 days, from October 4 to 19, 1979. Its incidence affected the island of Guam and Japan.
Irma and other female names
Storms that reach tropical strength are given a name, to facilitate the formulation of insurance claims, to help warn people of the arrival of a storm. A 19th century Australian meteorologist, Clement L. Wragge , was the first to name hurricanes. At first he chose biblical names, such as Zacchaeus, Uzza, or Tamar.
Until 1979, the United States Meteorological Commission only gave female names to hurricanes, but the Australian meteorological service began to assign names of both sexes. Today a commission meets and prepares the names to be given to each typhoon, starting with A and ending with Z.
The problem, however, is that baptizing these forces of nature with women’s names, which has sweeter or more harmless cultural connotations, is counterproductive.
By calling themselves with a sweet woman’s name (Rita, for example) instead of a blunt man’s name, people take less precautions because they consider it less dangerous, according to a study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science researchers from the University of Illinois, Arizona.
To reach this conclusion, the hurricanes and the victims produced by them in the interval from 1950 to 2012. Of the 47 most lethal hurricanes, female hurricanes had twice as many victims as male: 45 versus 23. If the Female name is particularly sweet, so the victims can be tripled , as is the case with Charley or Eloise.