AUGUSTA, Ga. - By all accounts, this has been a very inactive hurricane season. In fact, as of September 17, it is the weakest season since 1997. Ironically, the same list of hurricane names was used that year. 1991 was also a similarly weak year, and the same list of names was used that year as well.

The World Meteorological Association develops the annual hurricane list for each major ocean basin that experiences tropical systems. Lists are repeated every six years unless a name is retired (such as infamous storms like Andrew, Hugo, Katrina, etc.).

Hurricane seasons of 1994 and 1992 were also very weak. These two years, plus 1991, 1997, and 2009 were all years when El Nino was occurring.

El Nino is a global weather cycle that typically limits hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean by shifting the jet stream further south.

For more detail about naming of hurricanes, click here.

For more detail about El Nino, click here.