Florence and Michael retired by the World Meteorological Organization

[Eugene]

Source: NOAA

Florence and Michael retired by the World Meteorological Organization

Destructive hurricanes slammed southeastern United States last year

UPDATED: March 21, 2019. The number of names retired since 1953 is 89.

March 20, 2019

Florence and Michael won’t have another chance to wreak havoc in the Atlantic Basin.

The names of these two storms, which caused extensive fatalities and damage from Florida north to Virginia last year, have been retired by the World Meteorological Organization’s Region IV Hurricane Committee, which includes NOAA’s National Hurricane Center.

Storm names are retired if they were so deadly or destructive that the future use of the name would be insensitive - otherwise, names are reused on a six-year cycle.

The committee also selected the replacement names for Florence and Michael as Francine and Milton, respectively. These names will first appear in the 2024 list of storm names.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/florence-and-michael-retired-by-world-meteorological-organization

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. It could be giant fun to write a novel that takes place in,

oh, I don't know, 2076 or so, and have all of the hurricanes having very obscure names because so many will have been retired by then. Even though the reason we get men's names starting in 1979 as a kind of weird gender equality, it did at least double the potential names.