Storms with women’s names are more deadly than those with men’s names because people feel less threatened by them and take less precautions, researchers have claimed.
A study found that on average, storms with female names cause more deaths than those with male names.
Scientists claim this is because people prepare less for storms with female names as a result of unconscious bias which may have made people feel less frightened by them.
The issue was discussed this week by science writer Andrada Fiscutean who told the Unexpected Elements podcast the debate followed a study published in 2014 by researchers at Princeton and the University of Illinois.
‘They looked at hurricanes that hit the US between 1950 and 2012,’ she said.
‘They found that on average storms with female names had caused more deaths than those with male names.
‘Their theory was that people might unconsciously perceive female named storms as less threatening and therefore prepare less.’
Ms Fiscutean said that the study was ‘highly contested’, and only women’s names were used for storms which took place before 1979 in the US.
She continued: ‘Critics say the results were influenced by that.
‘Also, hurricanes have become much less deadly over time thanks to better forecasts, early warnings and stronger infrastructure.
‘So, this remains very contested.’
Storm Claudia hit the UK earlier this month
For the 2014 study, researchers at the University of Illinois analysed more than six decades of death rates from US hurricanes which showed severe hurricanes with a more feminine name result in a greater death toll, simply because a storm with a feminine name is seen as less foreboding than one with a more masculine name.
As a result, people in the path of these severe storms may take fewer protective measures, leaving them more vulnerable to harm.
The researches said the findings indicates an unfortunate and unintended consequence of the gendered naming of hurricanes, which has important implications for policymakers, meteorologists, the news media and the public regarding hurricane communication and preparedness.
Kiju Jung, a doctoral student in marketing in the U. of I.’s College of Business and the lead author on the study, said: ‘The problem is that a hurricane’s name has nothing to do with its severity.
‘Names are assigned arbitrarily, based on a predetermined list of alternating male and female names,’ he said. ‘If people in the path of a severe storm are judging the risk based on the storm’s name, then this is potentially very dangerous.’
The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined actual hurricane fatalities for all storms that made landfall in the US from 1950-2012, excluding Hurricane Katrina (2005) and Hurricane Audrey (1957) because they were much deadlier than the typical storm.
The authors found that for highly damaging storms, the more feminine the storm’s name, the more people it killed. The team’s analysis suggests that changing a severe hurricane’s name from the masculine ‘Charley’ to the feminine ‘Eloise’ could nearly triple its death toll.
Sharon Shavitt, a professor of marketing at Illinois and a co-author of the report, said: ‘In judging the intensity of a storm, people appear to be applying their beliefs about how men and women behave. This makes a female-named hurricane, especially one with a very feminine name such as Belle or Cindy, seem gentler and less violent.’
Hurricanes in the US were originally given only female names. An alternating male-female naming system was adopted in the late 1970s.
In the UK the Met Office has been naming storms since 2015. It says the naming of storms using a single authoritative system provides a consistent message and aids the communication of approaching severe weather.
When the criteria for naming a storm are met, the Met Office can name a storm, taking the name from the latest list in alphabetical order.
Among the most serious storms in recent years was Storm Ciara in February 2020, which hit the UK with gusts of up to 97mph with torrential rain, causing electricity outages, flooding and travel chaos across the country with at least 20,000 homes left without power.
It was followed by Storm Bella in December the same year. Storm Arwen in November 2021 left three people dead.