There has been a study showing that, historically, hurricanes that have female names have killed more people than hurricanes with male names. Looking at death rates from 1950 to 2012, of the 47 most damaging hurricanes, female named storms have averaged 45 deaths while male named storms have averaged 23.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and also suggest by knowing this it may cause people not to fear male named Hurricanes as much and not listen to warnings.  Which is opposite of conventional thinking. Hearing a female name, people usually are not as willing to seek shelter because they think of females as  not being as hostile as men.

The trouble with the study is, it wasn’t until 1979 that hurricanes started to be named after males and the study goes back to 1950, so there are a lot more female named hurricanes than male. No matter what the name of the hurricane, it is the strength of the storm that counts and if the weather experts are telling you to seek shelter, you better listen, and seek shelter.

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