Australia Weather News

As north Queensland prepares for Cyclone Debbie and wind gusts of up to 240 kilometres an hour, there's one surprising factor that could affect how seriously locals are taking the storm.

Thousands of people have been told to leave their homes, as the north prepares for a cyclone that is the worst since Yasi in 2011.

But could something as simple as the cyclone's name — Debbie — lead some north Queenslanders to underestimate its power?

A US study found cyclones with women's names cause significantly more deaths than those with men's names, "apparently because they lead to lower perceived risk and consequently less preparedness".

It examines US hurricanes and finds that changing a severe hurricane's name from Charlie to Eloise could nearly triple its death toll.

"Using names such as Eloise or Charlie for referencing hurricanes has been thought by meteorologists to enhance the clarity and recall of storm information," the study said.

"We show that this practice also taps into well-developed and widely held gender stereotypes, with potentially deadly consequences."

What's to blame?

The researchers pin it on implicit biases, such as expecting men to be "strong, competent, and aggressive" and women to be "weak, warm, and passive".

In turn, this leads people to take inadequate actions to protect themselves from an impending cyclone.

There does not appear to be any similar research on Australian cyclones, but a cursory glance through a list of our worst cyclones does show a preponderance of female names: Tracy, Ada, Althea, Ingrid, Emily, Monica, Winifred, Ita and Marcia.

Got any better ideas?

The idea of arbitrarily naming natural hazards after other things should be reconsidered, the researchers argue.

"When hurricanes and other such events are tagged with specific yet arbitrary labels used for other categories (men/women, animals, flora), one may expect human responses to be influenced by the mental representations associated with those categories," they write.

"Those representations may then influence subjective risk assessments or indeed any assessment relevant to the mental representation.

"Thus, a storm named for a flower may seem less threatening than one named for a raptor."

I mean, who wouldn't be terrified of Cyclone Velociraptor? (It would probably be able to open doors, after all.)

Now, it's worth noting that the study has been challenged multiple times but the authors stand by their findings.

Either way, for those in Debbie's path, it's not worth the risk.