Ernestt wrote:Ulf wrote:According to Wikipedia with a Cuban newspaper as the source, Rafael's damage is now over 1 billion in US dollar.
If Rafael gets retired along with Debby and the three definite ones, then that would be 5 names retired.
Add Tropical Storm Sara ($100 million USD/$2.5 billion lempiras (local currency) is still quite bad for Honduras even though it wasn't Eta/Iota for them) and there are 6 possible retirements
Honestly, I think Rafael could have a 50/50 shot of getting retired. Despite it having a lower death toll during its lifetime, it did end up causing landslides and floods in Panama whilst it was still a disturbance (I'd say it's a bit similar to 2017's Nate, which badly affected Costa Rica while it was also a disturbance, and ended up getting retired, and Rafael could get retired in a similar fashion) and ended up costing Panama around $110 million USD and 5 deaths with 2 more missing. It also caused one death in Colombia and 2 more in Jamaica. And in Cuba, if I remember correctly, caused a nationwide power outage and worsened their ongoing power crisis due to things like lack of oil, and caused around a billion USD. It'll probably depend on if Panama and/or Cuba wants to retire Rafael. If it does end up getting retired, names I could see potentially replacing it are Russell, Romeo, Ryan, Rodney, and Royce.
And as for Sara, while it's not impossible, I'm personally not holding my breath for it to be retired. I'm sure that we've seen storms in that region that caused around the same level of destruction and deaths (if not more) and not get retired, but I could be wrong though.