Retired names for 2003

[Valkhorn]

I think Isabel is a definate and Fabian, Juan, and Claudette are possibles to be retired names for this year.

What do you folks think?

[Stormsfury]

We just had a thread recently about this.

Fabian and Isabel, definitely. Juan is a possibility since that was the worst hurricane to hit Halifax, Nova Scotia in many, many years. Check out the Hurricane Juan Damage Pics.

Claudette was too localized and hit a fairly sparse area on the Texas Coast. Bret 1999 was a lot stronger and hit the sparsest area in Texas and was not retired.

SF

[Valkhorn]

I didn't see the thread about that... anyways Claudette could be a possibility. They did retire Lili last year and it weakened considerably before hitting land.

However Hurricane Danny in 1997 dumped 40 inches of rain south of Mobile and never was retired, while T.S. Allison a few years later was retired with about the same amount of rainfall although it was over several states.

[chadtm80]

http://www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic ... ht=retired

[Stormsfury]

I didn't see the thread about that... anyways Claudette could be a possibility. They did retire Lili last year and it weakened considerably before hitting land.

However Hurricane Danny in 1997 dumped 40 inches of rain south of Mobile and never was retired, while T.S. Allison a few years later was retired with about the same amount of rainfall although it was over several states.

The biggest reason is location, location, location. Danny's rainfall occurred between major metro areas and didn't cause anywhere near the damage totals that Allison did. Allison's rainfall and flooding was actually very widespread from Texas, Louisiana, and into the Southeast in a corridor swath. But the biggest tally came from the Houston area where the flooding alone there was responsible for over $2 BILLION in damages.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2001allison.html

Here's the biggest difference with Hurricane Danny.

True to form for a slow-moving hurricane, rainfall totals over extreme southern Alabama were gigantic. Doppler radar estimates suggested maximum storm total precipitation amounts to around 43 inches near Dauphin Island. Recent studies indicate that a new reflectivity vs. rainfall relationship for tropical cyclones, used with the Mobile radar, gives a rather accurate estimate of the actual precipitation. A rainfall total of 36.71 inches was measured at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab observing site. To the author's knowledge, this is the largest hurricane-related rainfall ever recorded in the state of Alabama, and one of the largest ever measured in the United States. Experience has shown that in the high wind regime of a hurricane, rain gauges do not capture all of the rainfall; so, this amount is probably an underestimate of the total. Fortunately, most of the extreme precipitation amounts occurred in areas near the coast or over water, near southwestern Mobile Bay. This helped to limit the amount of flooding, which would have been disastrous if rains of such magnitude had occurred farther inland. Nonetheless, there was some significant inland flooding along the path of Danny, notably in Charlotte, North Carolina, where rainfall totals of 8 to 12 inches where recorded. The resulting floods caused three deaths (see next section).

Entire Prelim Report.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/1997danny.html

[ColdFront77]

http://www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=16746&highlight=retired

I was going to search for this thread, if it the link wasn't posted here.

Thanks Chad.