Tango
Union
Victor
Whiskey
Extra
Yankee
Zulu
Some of the agencies had begun using the new alphabet in their communications, while others stuck to the old one. So the third storm of the season was “Charlie” part of the time and the rest of the time some wanted to call it “Coca.” At the end of the season there was no agreement as to which phonetic alphabet should be used and there was criticism for having continued an alphabet which was obsolete internationally.
After a long discussion, military members of the conference suggested adoption of girls’ names, which had been used successfully for typhoons in the Pacific for several years. Just how this practice originated is not known, but it was thought by some persons to have come from the book Storm, by George R. Stewart, which was published in 1941. In this book a fictitious Pacific storm is traced to the United States and its effects on the people are narrated in the style of a novel. A young weatherman at San Francisco, according to the story, called the storm Maria. Also there was Wragge’s use of girls’ names for willy-willies in Australia and Pan American Airway’s practice in connection with hurricanes as early as 1938. At any rate, with these Pacific precedents, the weathermen and hurricane hunters adopted the following list for 1953 for hurricanes in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico:
Alice