Tropical Storms That Should've Been Retired

[HurricaneRyan]

Today, Erika became only the second tropical storm in the Atlantic to have its name retired, following Allison in 2001.

I personally think other tropical storms should have their names retired too. What do you guys think should have been retired?

My picks:
Alberto 1994 - $1 billion in damage - quite a lot for a tropical storm. Should have been retired.
Bret 1993 - 213 deaths - more deaths than hurricanes like Andrew.

What would you guys add?

[Alyono]

1979 Claudette. Not sure how it was not retired

I would not say Alberto. Allison from 1989 had a better case

Bret was iffy. More of a case than Joaquin. However, I would be very conservative in retiring names (I would NOT retire names like Frances and even Charley I would give second thought to). I would only retire the worst of the worst. Since 1980, this would be my retirement list

Allen
Gilbert
Hugo
Andrew
Gordon
Georges
Mitch
Allison
Charley
Ivan
Jeanne
Katrina
Stan
Wilma
Hanna
Ike
Sandy

[HurricaneRyan]

1979 Claudette. Not sure how it was not retired

I would not say Alberto. Allison from 1989 had a better case

Bret was iffy. More of a case than Joaquin. However, I would be very conservative in retiring names (I would NOT retire names like Frances and even Charley I would give second thought to). I would only retire the worst of the worst. Since 1980, this would be my retirement list

Allen
Gilbert
Hugo
Andrew
Gordon
Georges
Mitch
Allison
Charley
Ivan
Jeanne
Katrina
Stan
Wilma
Hanna
Ike
Sandy

That seems very harsh and kind of naive. You don't live in every single country that is on the committee, or understand the economics of each country to understand the impact each hurricane and TS that got retired had.

[CrazyC83]

Dominica's population is about 75,000, and Erika did over $500M in damage there.

Using that ratio over the state of Florida with 20.5M people (to make a comparison), it would be like a hurricane doing $137 billion in damage to Florida. That would even surpass Katrina and would be in the category of the greatest hurricanes or tropical storms of all time.

[CrazyC83]

Looking at all the impacts, considering the countries affected (for monetary numbers the GDP is the primary consideration), since 1979 I would have also retired the following names that were not retired:

* 1985 - Juan, Kate
* 1993 - Bret, Gert
* 1994 - Gordon
* 1996 - Lili
* 1998 - Bonnie
* 2005 - Emily
* 2008 - Hanna
* 2010 - Alex
* 2012 - Isaac

[northjaxpro]

Fay 2008, which I mentioned in the 2015 Retirement Names Thread.

[northjaxpro]

Fay 2008 should have been retired imo, which I mentioned in the 2015 Retirement Names Thread.

[Alyono]

1979 Claudette. Not sure how it was not retired

I would not say Alberto. Allison from 1989 had a better case

Bret was iffy. More of a case than Joaquin. However, I would be very conservative in retiring names (I would NOT retire names like Frances and even Charley I would give second thought to). I would only retire the worst of the worst. Since 1980, this would be my retirement list

Allen
Gilbert
Hugo
Andrew
Gordon
Georges
Mitch
Allison
Charley
Ivan
Jeanne
Katrina
Stan
Wilma
Hanna
Ike
Sandy

That seems very harsh and kind of naive. You don't live in every single country that is on the committee, or understand the economics of each country to understand the impact each hurricane and TS that got retired had.

No, retirement is reserved for the worst of the worst. Not for anything that kills a person. It is when a storm is so severe, that reusing the same is totally inappropriate. See how the WPAC retires names. They do it the proper way. Not everything that causes some damage or a few deaths.

The names I listed are the worst of the worst

[HurricaneRyan]

1979 Claudette. Not sure how it was not retired

I would not say Alberto. Allison from 1989 had a better case

Bret was iffy. More of a case than Joaquin. However, I would be very conservative in retiring names (I would NOT retire names like Frances and even Charley I would give second thought to). I would only retire the worst of the worst. Since 1980, this would be my retirement list

Allen
Gilbert
Hugo
Andrew
Gordon
Georges
Mitch
Allison
Charley
Ivan
Jeanne
Katrina
Stan
Wilma
Hanna
Ike
Sandy

That seems very harsh and kind of naive. You don't live in every single country that is on the committee, or understand the economics of each country to understand the impact each hurricane and TS that got retired had.

No, retirement is reserved for the worst of the worst. Not for anything that kills a person. It is when a storm is so severe, that reusing the same is totally inappropriate. See how the WPAC retires names. They do it the proper way. Not everything that causes some damage or a few deaths.

The names I listed are the worst of the worst

And again, you are being naive.

Irene is the seventh costliest hurricane in the Atlantic. Rita and Frances are also in the Top 10, right above Allison, Jeanne and Hugo, which you think is "worst of the worst". Add the Top 20 in, you got Gustav and Floyd higher than Mitch, and Opal and Isabel being higher than Gilbert in terms of damage.

Then on top of that, you're disregarding damages from storms that didn't effect the US. Klaus was retired for flooding in Martinique, Fabian for the damage it caused to Bermuda being the worst they seen. Juan and Igor were retired for their effects on Atlantic Canada that made them benchmark storms. Erika's flooding severely affected Dominica economically. Luis and Marilyn devastated the islands they affected. Tomas caused severe damage in St. Lucia. Hortense caused major flooding and damage in Puerto Rico and surrounding areas. I can go on and on.

Bottom line...every country had their reasons for requesting retirement...and if the World Meteorological Organization had any disagreements, they would have said something. They've shown their judgment by denying Hawaii's request to retire Daniel back in 2006...so they have good judgement.

Just because you don't think it's the worst of the worst doesn't mean they still affected a lot of people both financially and personally.

[TheStormExpert]

That seems very harsh and kind of naive. You don't live in every single country that is on the committee, or understand the economics of each country to understand the impact each hurricane and TS that got retired had.

No, retirement is reserved for the worst of the worst. Not for anything that kills a person. It is when a storm is so severe, that reusing the same is totally inappropriate. See how the WPAC retires names. They do it the proper way. Not everything that causes some damage or a few deaths.

The names I listed are the worst of the worst

And again, you are being naive.

Irene is the seventh costliest hurricane in the Atlantic. Rita and Frances are also in the Top 10, right above Allison, Jeanne and Hugo, which you think is "worst of the worst". Add the Top 20 in, you got Gustav and Floyd higher than Mitch, and Opal and Isabel being higher than Gilbert in terms of damage.

Then on top of that, you're disregarding damages from storms that didn't effect the US. Klaus was retired for flooding in Martinique, Fabian for the damage it caused to Bermuda being the worst they seen. Juan and Igor were retired for their effects on Atlantic Canada that made them benchmark storms. Erika's flooding severely affected Dominica economically. Luis and Marilyn devastated the islands they affected. Tomas caused severe damage in St. Lucia. Hortense caused major flooding and damage in Puerto Rico and surrounding areas. I can go on and on.

Bottom line...every country had their reasons for requesting retirement...and if the World Meteorological Organization had any disagreements, they would have said something. They've shown their judgment by denying Hawaii's request to retire Daniel back in 2006...so they have good judgement.

Just because you don't think it's the worst of the worst doesn't mean they still affected a lot of people both financially and personally.

No doubt Frances(2004) deserved to be retired! It was an EXTREMELY slow moving hurricane that produced widespread damage up and down the peninsula of Florida even though it was only a moderate Cat.2 hurricane at landfall. Places as far north as Daytona Beach(at least) were feeling it's wrath! Even the Bahamas got deluged for days from Frances as it put the brakes on.

[Hurricanehink]

Looking at all the impacts, considering the countries affected (for monetary numbers the GDP is the primary consideration), since 1979 I would have also retired the following names that were not retired:

* 1985 - Juan, Kate
* 1993 - Bret, Gert
* 1994 - Gordon
* 1996 - Lili
* 1998 - Bonnie
* 2005 - Emily
* 2008 - Hanna
* 2010 - Alex
* 2012 - Isaac

This, and also Alberto 1994, Karl 10,

Alberto caused $1 billion in damage, mostly in the US state of Georgia, becoming the state's costliest storm on record. Karl caused $5.6 billion in damage and was the worst storm on record in Veracruz.

[Alyono]

If anyone thinks Opal is worse than Gilbert, they really do not know what happened in Gilbert!

Some here would have a full meltdown if Atlantic storms were correctly retired as strictly as WPAC storms are

[Alyono]

Now, there are a few storms so bad, that they should be retired from ALL basins

Those since 1975 are

NINA (as an aside, one could argue that no storm should EVER be retired since this one was not)
David
Thelma
Linda (1997 WPAC, not EPAC version)
Mitch
Jeanne
Stan
Nargis
Haiyan

[HurricaneRyan]

If anyone thinks Opal is worse than Gilbert, they really do not know what happened in Gilbert!

Some here would have a full meltdown if Atlantic storms were correctly retired as strictly as WPAC storms are

There is no way to "correctly" retire storms. The only person suggesting this so far is you, and frankly, you come off very conceited and act like your OPINION is the only one that matters and that everyone else's is wrong. The WPAC deals with storms year-round while the Atlantic basin only deals with it for half of that time, with off seasons storms every now and then. So that's probably why they are stricter on retiring storms.

And no one said Opal was worse than Gilbert. But in terms of the damage costs, Opal's was higher than Gilbert's. And once again, you're acting like Atlantic Canada, Belize, Bermuda, Cuba, France, St. Lucia, St. Croix, St. Martin, Puerto Rico, Dominicia, and other countries were in the wrong for requesting retirement of Hortense, Luis, Marilyn, Erika, Michelle, Iris, Keith, Lenny, Floyd and etc. It really comes off as disrespectful.

[TheStormExpert]

Found further proof to add more reasoning as to why Frances(2004) had just as much right to be retired as other notable storms like Jeanne(2004) for instance.

Hurricane Frances(2004) produced $9 Billion in damage.

Hurricane Jeanne(2004) produced $7 Billion in damage even though it was the deadliest storm of the 2004 season.

[Alyono]

If anyone thinks Opal is worse than Gilbert, they really do not know what happened in Gilbert!

Some here would have a full meltdown if Atlantic storms were correctly retired as strictly as WPAC storms are

There is no way to "correctly" retire storms. The only person suggesting this so far is you, and frankly, you come off very conceited and act like your OPINION is the only one that matters and that everyone else's is wrong. The WPAC deals with storms year-round while the Atlantic basin only deals with it for half of that time, with off seasons storms every now and then. So that's probably why they are stricter on retiring storms.

And no one said Opal was worse than Gilbert. But in terms of the damage costs, Opal's was higher than Gilbert's. And once again, you're acting like Atlantic Canada, Belize, Bermuda, Cuba, France, St. Lucia, St. Croix, St. Martin, Puerto Rico, Dominicia, and other countries were in the wrong for requesting retirement of Hortense, Luis, Marilyn, Erika, Michelle, Iris, Keith, Lenny, Floyd and etc. It really comes off as disrespectful.

You (and a few others) seem to take things personal whether or not a storm is retired. Does it really change anything? Counting down the days until we hear something is a bit strange, IMO. It's a storm name.

[galaxy401]

In recent years probably Hanna 2008 but that storm probably wasn't retired for the same reason as Gordon 1994. Only other contenders are Fay and Matthew 2010.

[tolakram]

The more storms are retired the less retirement means, in my personal opinion. It's an interesting side effect to giving storms names and not something that I, again just in my opinion, think has any value. I would rather storms still be given numbers and referred to simply as the number and the year so we can avoid all these retirement issues. I doubt many share my opinion, but there it is for what it's worth.

[HurricaneRyan]

The more storms are retired the less retirement means, in my personal opinion. It's an interesting side effect to giving storms names and not something that I, again just in my opinion, think has any value. I would rather storms still be given numbers and referred to simply as the number and the year so we can avoid all these retirement issues. I doubt many share my opinion, but there it is for what it's worth.

That would be even harder to remember. Names are easier to remember than numbers and not everyone is good at math.

[Steve]

1979 Claudette. Not sure how it was not retired

I would not say Alberto. Allison from 1989 had a better case

Bret was iffy. More of a case than Joaquin. However, I would be very conservative in retiring names (I would NOT retire names like Frances and even Charley I would give second thought to). I would only retire the worst of the worst. Since 1980, this would be my retirement list

Allen
Gilbert
Hugo
Andrew
Gordon
Georges
Mitch
Allison
Charley
Ivan
Jeanne
Katrina
Stan
Wilma
Hanna
Ike
Sandy

Rita messed up some worlds west of here and was a massive storm.