What if a greek letter storm gets retired?

[TSmith274]

I was thinking about this earlier. If a greek letter storm is worthy of retirement, do they retire it? We would just skip that letter forever, I guess. Of course, this would be the first year ever for alpha, so it would probably be a moot point. We'd probably never see it again anyway.

[Hurricanehink]

It is a letter, not a name, so it can't get retired. That is the assumtion right now, though they have many options (Eliminate the letter, replace with a letter of a different language, etc.)

[wxmann_91]

This question has been asked numerous times. I remember a thread where Senorpepr answered it very well and gave a really good explanation, but the answer is no. Chances of getting to the Greek alphabet are slim each year, and the Greek alphabet works just like numbers and letters, they don't skip it even if it's a Cat 5 into NYC.

The example Senorpepr gave was if TD 10 killed 10,000 people, the number 10 would still be used the next year if TD 10 came up.

[senorpepr]

The example Senorpepr gave was if TD 10 killed 10,000 people, the number 10 would still be used the next year if TD 10 came up.

Actually, a few years ago a TD 12 had a high casuality count -- it was never retired. A few decades ago, when storms were given phonic letters, a handful of storms caused plenty of damage and casualities and no were retired.

[HurricaneBill]

My guess is it would not be retired, but it would be remembered by the area most affected by it. Like they did in the past.

For example, say it was Hurricane "Beta", instead of Dennis that hit Cuba. It'd probably be referred to as "the Cienfuegos Hurricane of 2005".

[senorpepr]

My guess is it would not be retired, but it would be remembered by the area most affected by it. Like they did in the past.

For example, say it was Hurricane "Beta", instead of Dennis that hit Cuba. It'd probably be referred to as "the Cienfuegos Hurricane of 2005".

A lot of places throughout the world still practice that, even with named storms.

Even storms that strike Japan... they aren't referred to, typically, by their official name, but rather the typhoon number.

[Jim Hughes]

Chances of getting to the Greek alphabet are slim each year

I would not be so sure of this ....at least in the short term....years wise....maybe decade. I have been looking over some things more carefully and I do not like the relationship. Next year could very well be close to the same. I will feel more confident in this forecast by years end. I need to look at how things stack up compared to this year.



Jim

[SapphireSea]

Alpha, Beta, Delta would likely be used exactly as Hurricane Alpha (now known as Catarina) in the S. Atlantic, in which an official formal name would be assigned to it later. So any storm that makes it to retirement in greek alphabet would have no effect on future names.

[Dr. Jonah Rainwater]

Yeah, but hurricane names take on special meanings for us Americans because of all the media coverage. North Carolinans remember Bertha, Fran, Bonnie, Floyd, Isabel, Alex, and Ophelia, and can tell you special personality quirks about every one of them. You can't retire a number because the sequential order is important for keeping track of systems, just as you can't retire the entire letter I. You can retire as many names beginning with I as you can, and if you end up running out of names for I, start using nouns. But if Hurricane Alpha ends up causing billions in damage and far too many deaths, that storms needs to be retired. We don't like that certain storms like Gordon, Juan, and Emily, weren't retired, and it wouldn't be right if Alpha were ever named again...you could either just start with Beta the next year, since Greek names will be so rare that we could just start trimming the list, or you could maybe replace it with Able from the military list...personally, I think that there should be a standardized list of XYZ names, like Xavier, Yvonne, and Zackary, that would be tacked onto the end of any season that goes above 21 storms. That way we'd need 24 storms before we have to deal with this.

[brunota2003]

Yeah, but hurricane names take on special meanings for us Americans because of all the media coverage. North Carolinans remember Bertha, Fran, Bonnie, Floyd, Isabel, Alex, and Ophelia, and can tell you special personality quirks about every one of them. You can't retire a number because the sequential order is important for keeping track of systems, just as you can't retire the entire letter I. You can retire as many names beginning with I as you can, and if you end up running out of names for I, start using nouns. But if Hurricane Alpha ends up causing billions in damage and far too many deaths, that storms needs to be retired. We don't like that certain storms like Gordon, Juan, and Emily, weren't retired, and it wouldn't be right if Alpha were ever named again...you could either just start with Beta the next year, since Greek names will be so rare that we could just start trimming the list, or you could maybe replace it with Able from the military list...personally, I think that there should be a standardized list of XYZ names, like Xavier, Yvonne, and Zackary, that would be tacked onto the end of any season that goes above 21 storms. That way we'd need 24 storms before we have to deal with this.

I agree, I could tell you every little movement those storms made up to landfall, or skirting the coast, as Ophelia did... Also, I sent an e-mail to the NHC asking about this, ought to be interesting what thet say...