Can the Greek alphabet storms be retired?

[O Town]

Don't you think the chances of ever reaching the greek alphabet again, IF we happen to do it in the years ahead, is highly unlikely? I think if we happen to get to Alpha and it did make a landfall and cause great damage and loss of life, the likley hood of reaching Alpha again seems unlikey to me. Just my 2 cents.

[inotherwords]

None, as far as I know. The closest approach was 1933, which, if the naming system were used then, would have gone to W. That year had 21 storms.

Thanks. I would guess in the pre-satellite world of 1960 there may have been some named storms missed, too, that formed and diminished before ships or airplanes reported them. So maybe some of these years might possibly have had enough storms to go into the alphas, too, using the current naming system as a model.

[senorpepr]

senorpepr, thanks for the fascinating info!

Question for you: who decides if a name is retired, is it NHC? Also, I wonder what their criteria for retirement is? I know it's significant damage and destruction, but you've also named a few Cat 3 storms that had this whose names were not retired. I'm just wondering how they judge what's significant, if they have some sort of benchmarks they look for.

Thanks! I know you say you've gone over this before but it was new to me and so I very much appreciate you discussing this again.

Maybe this could go in a S2K FAQ somewhere so you could just point people to it when the question pops up again.

I'm also curious: Since we started using the people names for storms, in which years (if any) did we have so many storms that we went into the alphas? Thanks again.

First, the NHC doesn't retire name solely. All the nations in the Atlantic basin meet at a WMO meeting in the following Spring. One of the topics that come up is name retirement. They vote whether certain storms are retired.

As for criteria for retirement... it's nothing more than significant damage and/or casualities. There are no set figures. Basically it's up to the landfalling nation to decide whether the storm was bad enough to warrent retirement.

As for your last question... since we've began using name... T was as far as we have gone. Had we named storms in the 30s, 1933 would have reached W. That is the record-holding year.

[senorpepr]

The principle that names get retired but numbers and letters don't is merely a rule about how we use words and letters, not a fact carved in stone. The NHC has not said as far as I can tell whether it would retire Alpha if it was a major storm that caused problems.

A (capital alpha) is a letter. Alpha is a word and a name. It is part of the name of the nearest star system to the Sun, Alpha Centauri.

Some alternatives for a destructive Alpha cyclone are:

Increment the name. Next year, the 22nd storm would be called Alphb.
Skip the name. Next year, the 22nd storm would be Beta.
Cycle the names. The 22nd storm this year would be Arlene; possibly Arlene 2.
Year the name. The 22nd storm this year would be Alpha 2005.
Use another alphabet. The 22nd storm next year would be Aleph.

Once again... Alpha is a letter... not a word. Just as Dog or Easy are letters... not words. Storms lettered Dog or Easy in the 50s warrented retirement, but didn't because of being a letter. Same thing for storms lettered Alpha or Beta.

Regardless... you'll never see the NHC increment the letters (Alphb) or skip names (Beta) or cycle names (Arlene 2) or use another alphabet (Aleph). The confusion would be even greater.

[P.K.]

Once again... Alpha is a letter... not a word. Just as Dog or Easy are letters... not words. Storms lettered Dog or Easy in the 50s warrented retirement, but didn't because of being a letter. Same thing for storms lettered Alpha or Beta.

Alpha is just how it is pronounced. If we do get that far I'll be referring to it as TS/Hurricane α (Hope the greek alphabet works in this forum or that might look wrong)

[jimvb]

Alpha is a five-letter word. It means a letter, but it is a word. The same for Dog, Easy, and so forth which are part of an old phonetic alphabet.

You are right about my alternatives, which I just threw out as ways of dealing with retiring a post-W name. I think they would simply call it Alpha, even if a previous devastating hurricane were Alpha. To make it clear, people would call them Alpha 2005, for instance.

By the way, how did you get that small alpha to appear in your message? I tried ampersand "alpha" semicolon and ampersand sharp "945" semicolon, enclosed and not-enclosed by Code, but they didn't work.

[Anonymous]

I think if we have any bad greek named storms...they will not be retired. For example...if we have a Cat 5 Disaster of Hurricane Gamma...what are the chances that 30 years later...a Tropical Storm Gamma would be a Cat 5 disaster?

I think this year, we will see Dennis, Emily, Katrina, Rita retired...and proabaly replaced...IMO:::

Arlene
Bret
Cindy
Derek
Elaine
Franklin
Gert
Harvey
Irene
Jose
Kathleen
Lee
Maria
Nate
Ophelia
Philippe
Raquel
Stan
Tammy
Vince
Wilma

[otowntiger]

Wow... this question keeps popping up. I'll repeat once again.

A) Storms are NOT automatically retired if they become category five. They must cause significant damage and/or casualities. A category five fish will NOT be retired.

B) The "overtime" storms will be named: "Alpha" "Beta" "Gamma" etc. No year will be tacked on the end.

C) Greek letters will NOT be retired. They don't retire depression numbers and they don't retire Greek letters. Only names that cause significant damage and/or casualities.

WOW what an smart(y) reply. I had the same question and I disagree in part with your answer. There would be a HUGE difference between a depression # and a cat 4/5 hurricane that causes catastrophic damage that happens to be named "Alpha". I'm sure that since it would be an unprecedented occurance they would for posterity call it "Alpha 2005" and be done with it. In the rare case that "Alpha" had to be used again, it could.

[JohnTK5]

Alpha is a five-letter word. It means a letter, but it is a word. The same for Dog, Easy, and so forth which are part of an old phonetic alphabet.

You are right about my alternatives, which I just threw out as ways of dealing with retiring a post-W name. I think they would simply call it Alpha, even if a previous devastating hurricane were Alpha. To make it clear, people would call them Alpha 2005, for instance.

By the way, how did you get that small alpha to appear in your message? I tried ampersand "alpha" semicolon and ampersand sharp "945" semicolon, enclosed and not-enclosed by Code, but they didn't work.

Incorrect Alpha is not word which means a letter, it is a letter. However Alpha is also a word, but in this case it is being used as a letter. As a word alpha means the begining, however in this case it is being used strictly as a letter.

[sma10]

I think if we have any bad greek named storms...they will not be retired. For example...if we have a Cat 5 Disaster of Hurricane Gamma...what are the chances that 30 years later...a Tropical Storm Gamma would be a Cat 5 disaster?

I think this year, we will see Dennis, Emily, Katrina, Rita retired...and proabaly replaced...IMO:::

Arlene
Bret
Cindy
Derek
Elaine
Franklin
Gert
Harvey
Irene
Jose
Kathleen
Lee
Maria
Nate
Ophelia
Philippe
Raquel
Stan
Tammy
Vince
Wilma

This is just bizarre. You're now predicting what the replacement names will be????

[Snowzealot]

If in fact there is a current policy that Alpha and Beta can't be retired because they are mere alphabets is ridiculous. The notion that we could have an Alpha that kills thousands, causes $200 billion in damage and it still wouldn't be retired is silly. They should add the year to the Greek Alphabet and retire them just the same as storms named after people. And yeah, the "we don't retire numbers" rule is equally as stupid.

[Anonymous]

I think if we have any bad greek named storms...they will not be retired. For example...if we have a Cat 5 Disaster of Hurricane Gamma...what are the chances that 30 years later...a Tropical Storm Gamma would be a Cat 5 disaster?

I think this year, we will see Dennis, Emily, Katrina, Rita retired...and proabaly replaced...IMO:::

Arlene
Bret
Cindy
Derek
Elaine
Franklin
Gert
Harvey
Irene
Jose
Kathleen
Lee
Maria
Nate
Ophelia
Philippe
Raquel
Stan
Tammy
Vince
Wilma

This is just bizarre. You're now predicting what the replacement names will be????

Always interesting to guess. Last year I was accurate with Fiona replacing Frances

[gilbert88]

Nevermind...

[gilbert88]

If in fact there is a current policy that Alpha and Beta can't be retired because they are mere alphabets is ridiculous. The notion that we could have an Alpha that kills thousands, causes $200 billion in damage and it still wouldn't be retired is silly. They should add the year to the Greek Alphabet and retire them just the same as storms named after people. And yeah, the "we don't retire numbers" rule is equally as stupid.

They should? Why? Why is it stupid not to retire depressions? The retiring of names was stablished for practical reasons, it is not a standard set in stone.

[curtadams]

Um - they retire names to minimize confusion. I can't think of anything MORE confusing than to retire a number or a letter! If they retired Alpha EVERY time we got to Beta there would be mass confusion in the public and even here: "What about Alpha?" "I thought we just had the W storm?" requiring endless tedious media discussion of what letters have and have not been retired, and even MORE tedious discussions here of whether it was appropriate to retire the letter! Yuck!

[bombarderoazul]

How about using a system similar to what is used to name EPAC storms, they have a few names for their storms past the letter W.

list of 2005.

Adrian
Beatriz
Calvin
Dora
Eugene
Fernanda
Greg
Hilary
Irwin
Jova
Kenneth
Lidia
Max
Norma
Otis
Pilar
Ramon
Selma
Todd
Veronica
Wiley
Xina
York
Zelda

[johngaltfla]

Assuming we get to greek letters, and one of them becomes a cat 5 (which I heard means being automatically retired) would it still get retired though? If so, what will replace it?

If we get to the Greek alphabet, I'm going to automatically retire and move into the Rocky Mountains. I'll gamble with mountain lions and blizzards vs. losing everything annually.

[FunkMasterB]

however in this case it is being used strictly as a letter.

No, if it was the letter it would be 'A'. Alpha is the Greek word for the letter A. I like to argue.

[sma10]

Um - they retire names to minimize confusion. I can't think of anything MORE confusing than to retire a number or a letter! If they retired Alpha EVERY time we got to Beta there would be mass confusion in the public and even here: "What about Alpha?" "I thought we just had the W storm?" requiring endless tedious media discussion of what letters have and have not been retired, and even MORE tedious discussions here of whether it was appropriate to retire the letter! Yuck!

'EVERY time we got to Beta'? How often do you think we'll hit the Greek alphabet? Maybe once every 50 years?

Also, I like your exaggeration that "there would be mass confusion in the public." I think if you asked an average member of the masses to recite the Greek alphabet, I don't think one in ten will know the first two letters. Nevertheless, should someone actually pipe up and ask, "What about Alpha?" the answer would be "Oh, that was the storm back in 2005 that killed 50,000 people and caused $100 billion in damage."

[gpickett00]

I like to argue.

thats awesome. thats why i read this message board