Tropical Storms That Should've Been Retired

[Steve]

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.

IMHO, he's just giving his opinion. He's one of the top hurricane meteorologists on this forum. He just happens to disagree. He's not trying to be disrespectful. He's just saying what he thinks it ought to be. FWIW, I don't disagree with you on all cases. I think you make some good points otherwise.

[CrazyC83]

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.

Another option is continuous lists with new names always being added so that every name is only used once...but then the alphabet rule goes out the window.

[CrazyC83]

When it comes to economic (not human) costs, percentage of GDP is just as important as the actual numerical amount.

Erika in Dominica, at a rough estimate of 500 million in damage, resulted in losses nearly equal to its entire GDP ($535M). Only a few other storms can claim that distinction in recent years, including Ivan 2004 in Grenada, Fabian 2003 in Bermuda and Tomas 2010 in St. Lucia.

For comparison, Katrina 2005 using the GDP portions for only Louisiana and Mississippi (based on $105B in damage in those two states), did about 30% of their combined GDP in damage.

[Alyono]

Bermuda's gdp is a LOT higher than the 300 million in damage Fabian caused. But it, along with Gonzalo, caused a significant amount of damage relative to GDP

[GSBHurricane]

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

Over two years late but I’m bumping this anyway. You do realize that Frances was slated to be removed after 2004 regardless of impact because France asked for its removal for political reasons two years before it was officially retired? And the WMO approved?