2008 Cyclones Retirement

[CrazyC83]

Based on Wikipedia

And the rest did damage too little to be mentioned.

I do agree Gustav's $20 billion is too high, I'd say it is more likely $6-10 billion total in the US (still very high due to inland wind damage and coastal flooding), and maybe another $2-4 billion in the Caribbean.

Dolly I think will see its number drop to about $500-800 million in the end as well, a bit less than Fay. Hanna's cost shouldn't be too high (maybe $50M) as Haiti has little value in terms of its property damage.

[CrazyC83]

Ian is pretty much the only modern name left.

As for Gustav... hmmm, Guy?

Guy would also be my first choice as a replacement for Gustav because it fits so well the NHC's own criteria that the name by "short and distinctive". But Gary is almost as good a choice as Guy. And Glenn would also work very well.

If they want to use names which are now "modern" in the sense that a lot of babies in the USA are being given them, then Gabriel, Gavin, Gage, Garrett, Giovanni, Grant, or Griffin are possibilities.

If they end up replacing Hanna, I think Heather would be good, though it might be a bit hard to pronounce in Spanish or French. Hayley, Hallie, Harriet, and Heidi would also work. "Hope" would fit the short and distinctive criteria well, but personally I don't like the idea of that word becoming the name of a hurricane. It would be too ironic if it was the name of a destructive storm.

There was once a Tropical Storm Hope in 1978. Thankfully it was a fishie. I agree Heather would be a good name for Hanna, but will Haiti put forward a retirement case?

[HURAKAN]

And the rest did damage too little to be mentioned.

I only included the ones in question for retirement.

[CrazyC83]

And the rest did damage too little to be mentioned.

I only included the ones in question for retirement.

Good idea. I don't think Dolly or Fay will be retired, although some may disagree.

[Ad Novoxium]

Just coming by to update, and also a little bit of news: Funa and Gene have been retired, in addition to Cliff and Daman from the year before. The replacements are Fotu, and Glen. (Chip and Denia are Cliff and Daman's replacements.)

[Derek Ortt]

I'd expect that Fay caused a bit more than 50 million is US damage. Ernesto, of a similar intensity in a similar location, caused 500 million

[somethingfunny]

They ought to strike Nana from the list for 2014 and replace it with another female N name....there's plenty of less ridiculous sounding names available, like Natasha, Natalie, Nadia, Naomi, Nancy......Nera, Nellie, Nina, Norah, Nicolette, Noreen, Nikki, Noelle..... http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Names_female-N etc.

In American usage, Nana is a nickname for someone's grandmother. In French, it's slang for an attractive woman. Imagine Hurricane Hottie instead of Hurricane Hattie. Or imagine if we were watching Nana explosively intensify south of Puerto Rico instead of Omar right now. I'm pretty sure that a short-lived marginal TS was only named Nana this year (while a similarly short-lived system that was most likely a TS just south of Nana was not named) was so that they could get this name out of the way.

[HurricaneRobert]

Paloma's not a nice name for a hurricane, and they chose to use Rene as a male name. I'd rather not see Bertha again. That's a stupid name.

They could come up with lots of R's, S's, T's, and W's but those are almost never used. They need to start each year where the previous one left off.

[HURAKAN]

Nana is perfect. Short and very easy to pronounce. That's the main purpose.

René in Spanish is used mainly for males. I don't know any Hispanic female named René.

[Cleveland Kent Evans]

I agree that short and easy to pronounce are the main criteria. My objection to Nana on this list is that I don't think it's wise to have two names that rhyme (Hanna and Nana) on the same year's list. But Nana was on the list first; Hanna was a replacement for Hortense.

René is originally a French male name. It's been extensively used as a male name in Spanish-speaking Latin America, also. There are a few American women named René, but the original feminine form of the name in French is Renée -- and the form with two e's at the end is much more common for women in the USA than the originally male one-e spelling.

I don't know what's "not nice" about Paloma myself.

I'd have no objection to "starting where the former year left off". But W is actually a letter where there aren't many good replacement names, especially for female names. Z would be easier to find a lot of short easy to pronounce names for than W.

[HurricaneRobert]

Paloma sounds like somebody's grandmother. Like Nana. Hurricane Abuelita.

[Category 5]

And the rest did damage too little to be mentioned.

I only included the ones in question for retirement.

Good idea. I don't think Dolly or Fay will be retired, although some may disagree.

I'll have to agree. And before anyone says it, Omar isn't getting retired either IMO.

Gustav and Ike and gone, Hanna is up in the air.

[HurricaneRobert]

I don't think Hanna's a question mark. It was extremely deadly and destructive.

[Category 5]

I don't think Hanna's a question mark. It was extremely deadly and destructive.

But will Haiti request it? That's why it's up in the air. I think it certainly should be retired.

[CrazyC83]

Despite its intensity (approaching the islands at peak strength), I think Omar is here to stay as the damage reports aren't that severe.

[Derek Ortt]

Despite its intensity (approaching the islands at peak strength), I think Omar is here to stay as the damage reports aren't that severe.

keep in mind that it did hit France. France requested Noel's retirement last year, when it hit France as a WAVE

[bvigal]

I don't think Omar needs to be retired.

One caution about wikipedia, used as a source of storm damage/casualty information:

Wikipedia is a consensus of opinions, moderated by unknown individuals, whose credentials are also often unknown. Yes, they are often correct and have more information sooner (not having to verify helps with that), and many articles do quote other online references or paper publications. But I've seen them very, very wrong before, and it's scary how they are becoming viewed as some kind of authority, like the Enclyclopedia Brittanica, etc. Please use your brain to critically evaluate, and verify, when referring to wikipedia for information on any subject.

[Calasanjy]

Here are my predictions for the names WMO will retire:
Atlantic - Dolly, Gustav, Ike, Paloma
East Pacific - none
West Pacific - Jangmi

[Derek Ortt]

Dolly has as much chance of being retired as Notre Dame does of winning the national championship this season

[Calasanjy]

Dolly has as much chance of being retired as Notre Dame does of winning the national championship this season

Well, the latter's definitely not going to happen, however there's always the outside chance that Guatemala could request retirement of Dolly. However, next year will be the current list's thirtieth year of existence, isn't it wearing out its welcome?

Anyway - possible replacement names for those Atlantic names which may be retired:
Replace Dolly by Dita/Drusilla (something mean-sounding)/Damienne/Dharla
Replace Gustav by Geraldo/Ghislain/Giovanni/Guillaume
Replace Hanna by Heidi/Hestia/Honora/Hildegarde (again to sound intimidating)
Replace Ike by Ichabod (very intimidating)/Ira/Icarus/Illbert (hah, best fourth "I" option I could think of)
Replace Omar by Odilo (i.e. Globocnik)/Omri/Olaf/Osama (fat chance)
Replace Paloma by Puricima/Pitina/Pepita/Pia (had to search for some Hispanic girls' names)

There should be more truly fearsome names, like ones associated with malefactors, on these lists IMHO.