ORLANDO, Fla. – You often hear terms like tropical depression, tropical storm, and hurricane during hurricane season, but “potential tropical cyclone” is a newer term you might not know.
The National Hurricane Center introduced it in 2017. A potential tropical cyclone allows the NHC to issue advisories for systems that aren’t yet tropical depressions or storms but could bring winds of 39 mph or more to land within 48 hours.
This gives them time to post tropical storm or hurricane watches and warnings earlier and keep people in affected areas informed.
For example, if the NHC issued tropical advisories for a newly formed Potential Tropical Cyclone 8, hanging off the southeastern U.S. coast. If later it becomes a tropical depression, it would keep the same number and be called Tropical Depression 8.
If it then develops winds of 39 mph or more, it would become a tropical storm and get the name Helene, which is the eighth name on the 2024 list.
The only issue with this naming system is that if there was another PTC/Tropical Depression out there and it becomes a tropical storm before Potential Tropical Cyclone 8.
In that case, that PTC/Tropical Depression would get the “H” name and 8 would get the “I” name because PTC/Tropical Depression became a tropical storm first, even though 8 appeared first.
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