2009 Hurricanes - Who is windier? Boys or Girls?

Let the sexist weather jokes commence!

If there is an equal number of female and male named hurricanes, would that settle as other?

Yup. "Other" includes ties.

great question

We know the girls will be windier. We just have greater capacity to never stop yapping. Even if there was only 1 female hurricane, she would top 5 males.!!!! And that's the way it is.....

Then again, I know plenty of guys that are just full of hot air.

Oh my, I was thinking of a different kind of wind. Oops, n/m !! :_)

Well, just the fact that the year started with a female name means there's a 50% chance there'll be more female storms than there will be male ones, and a 50% chance there'll be an equal number of both. (And there is, of course, no chance there'll be more male-named storms than female ones.) That is, if there are an odd number of storms, there'll be one more female one than male; if there are an even number of storms, the male/female ratio will be balanced. Of course, this doesn't tell us which storms will become hurricanes, but a mathematician would still tell you the odds are better for girls...

So far male is the winner, Ana, and Claudette wimped out, Bill is blowing strong.

@squlman: your logic was correct at the outset of the season, but now that we are three names deep and the 2 females wimped out, the odds have clearly changed. The next storm is male and males are already up one!

I just did a little back of the napkin calculation.

If there is an odd number of hurricanes, there is 0% chance of "Other" (a tie) happening.

If there is an even number of hurricanes, these are the odds:

2 hurricanes : Female 1:4 / Other 2:4 / Male 1:4
4 hurricanes Female 5:16 / Other 6:16 / Male 5:16
6 hurricanes: Female 22:64 / 20:64 / 22:64

and so on. Gotta go to dinner. More on this later. Look up "Pascal's Triangle" to see how the odds progress. It's similar to a coin flipping experiment.

C'mon, tuff; don't you recognize touting when you see it? ;-)

Did some crunching: things are remarkably--or unremarkably, depending on one's take--balanced. Over the past 20 complete season there have been 139 named hurricanes in the North Atlantic. 69 have had male names, for a mean yearly average of 3.45, while there have been 70 hurricanes with female names for a mean average of 3.5. There have been an equal number of male and female hurricanes five times; there have been more male names than female ones eight times, and more female ones seven times. Just about the only area of comparison that is statistically anomalous is in the number of highly destructive hurricanes. While there have been a handful of notable male-named storms over those years--Hugo, Ivan, Floyd, Charley, and Andrew--the females have been more vicious in number, with the likes of Opal, Fran, Bonnie, Frances, Jeanne, Dolly, Hanna, Paloma, and 2005's unholy trinity of Rita, Wilma, and Katrina.

@ carnac: you are forgetting that we already have one with a male name. So, if the next one is the only other one, that is a total of 2, there are only two possibilities:
1. another male = boys win
2. female name = tie (other)
there is 0 chance of girls winning with a total of 2 'canes
with 4 'canes, the odds still favor males, since one's already in the bag....
@sqlman: yea, I figured you were trying to sway the wagering, so I took the opportunity to quickly place my bet and THEN set the record straight :-)

My figurin' was based on the odds at the outset of the season. Of course, things are different if you spot yourself on male hurricane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Atlantic_hurricane_season#Season_effects

Hurricane Bill (Cat 4)
Hurricane Fred (Cat 3)

Hurricane Ida (Cat 2)