2014 Cyclones Retirement

[psyclone]

Alyono wrote:
too many names are retired as it is. we'll be reusing retired names if we keep retiring every single landfalling storm

My parents live in Los Cabos, MX and are Hurricane Odile survivors. After seeing the destruction first hand, the name Odile most definitely should have been retired. Just because deadly hurricanes don't make landfall on the CONUS, doesn't mean that they should be dismissed.

How did you read that into this quote? Nothing was mentioned about Odile or any particular storm or whether or not it made landfall in the US. These types of statements are tiresome. I think most would agree Odile should be retired. But I still agree that "too many names are retired as it is"

[Alyono]

too many names are retired as it is. we'll be reusing retired names if we keep retiring every single landfalling storm

completely concur. I think retirement should be reserved for extreme Andrew/Katrina type events. when you lower the threshold below an exceptional historic event every landfall becomes an excuse to retire. all hurricanes are wicked

Since 2000, these are the names I would have retired

Allison
Ivan
Jeanne
Katrina
Stan
Wilma
Hanna
Ike
Sandy

From 1980 through 1999, these are the names I would have retired

Allen
Gilbert
Hugo
Andrew
Gordon
Georges
Mitch

[xtyphooncyclonex]

So Charley wasn't destructive? Nor were Gustav, Isabel and Fabian? I totally disagree. Retirement is done for storms UPON the request of representatives in the committee, not just some guessing. It is when a storm has bad impacts on a country, and is not a picking game.

[Alyono]

:uarrow: So Charley wasn't destructive? Nor were Gustav, Isabel and Fabian? I totally disagree. Retirement is done for storms UPON the request of representatives in the committee, not just some guessing. It is when a storm has bad impacts on a country, and is not a picking game.

charley was not on the scale of Ivan and Jeanne, so no, I would not have included it

Some here would retire every single 35 kt tropical storm that makes landfall. Retirement is for storms that are so bad that it is inappropriate to ever use the names again. Given what Ivan and Jeanne did in 2004, Charley simply is not on that level.

Retirement should be a rare event. It is far too common now

[Yellow Evan]

:uarrow: So Charley wasn't destructive? Nor were Gustav, Isabel and Fabian? I totally disagree. Retirement is done for storms UPON the request of representatives in the committee, not just some guessing. It is when a storm has bad impacts on a country, and is not a picking game.

charley was not on the scale of Ivan and Jeanne, so no, I would not have included it

Some here would retire every single 35 kt tropical storm that makes landfall. Retirement is for storms that are so bad that it is inappropriate to ever use the names again. Given what Ivan and Jeanne did in 2004, Charley simply is not on that level.

Retirement should be a rare event. It is far too common now

I view retirements as an indication that the storm was memorable/notable and it would be confusing if used again.

BTW, why didn't you include Gordon yet you included Hanna? Gustav did a bit of damage in Louisiana, just overshadowed by Ike. Charely did ~20 billion in damages, and Karl 10 is MX's costliest cyclone IIRC.

I would have axed the following systems since 1985:
Juan 85
Gert 93
Alberto 94
Gordon 94
Bonnie 98
Irene 99
Emily 05
Dolly 08
Fay 08
Hanna 08
Alex 10
Karl 10
Lee 11
Isaac 12
Gonzalo 14

From the EPAC side since 1985:
Calvin 93
Oliwa 97
Nora 97
Juliete 01
Agatha 10
Iselle 14

[Alyono]

yes, I totally forgot about Gordon. It should have been retired as well. I'll make the edit

[xtyphooncyclonex]

$20 billion in damages for Charley is a lot. surprised that you said it would not have been retired, and is on par (close to) Andrew

[Alyono]

$20 billion in damages for Charley is a lot. surprised that you said it would not have been retired, and is on par (close to) Andrew

Charley is closer to 15 billion

Also, when you include normalizations, its not at all close to Andrew.

Retirement should be for the worst of the worst, the storms I named previously. Not for every storm that has a significant impact.

That is why I like how the WPAC retires storms. Only the truly memorable ones are retired. Not just your "ordinary" destructive storms

I did see a mention that Karl is Mexico's most destructive. The NHC TCR indicates that it "only" caused a few hundred million in damage. I am not sure where the Wikipedia article got their billions of dollars figure. It was not even close to the same level as was Wilma. I favor Wilma and Ike retirements for their Mexico and Cuban impacts, not the US impacts (though Ike should have been retired for its US impacts as it was truly devastating for a large area. It's just that the damage was not on the same relative scale as it was in Cuba)

[Yellow Evan]

$20 billion in damages for Charley is a lot. surprised that you said it would not have been retired, and is on par (close to) Andrew

Charley is closer to 15 billion

Also, when you include normalizations, its not at all close to Andrew.

Retirement should be for the worst of the worst, the storms I named previously. Not for every storm that has a significant impact.

That is why I like how the WPAC retires storms. Only the truly memorable ones are retired. Not just your "ordinary" destructive storms

I did see a mention that Karl is Mexico's most destructive. The NHC TCR indicates that it "only" caused a few hundred million in damage. I am not sure where the Wikipedia article got their billions of dollars figure. It was not even close to the same level as was Wilma. I favor Wilma and Ike retirements for their Mexico and Cuban impacts, not the US impacts (though Ike should have been retired for its US impacts as it was truly devastating for a large area. It's just that the damage was not on the same relative scale as it was in Cuba)

Karl's damage comes from Mexican newspaper reports. The TCR report in that instance includes only insured losses. Keep in mind it did hit a major city in Veracruz.

[Alyono]

$20 billion in damages for Charley is a lot. surprised that you said it would not have been retired, and is on par (close to) Andrew

Charley is closer to 15 billion

Also, when you include normalizations, its not at all close to Andrew.

Retirement should be for the worst of the worst, the storms I named previously. Not for every storm that has a significant impact.

That is why I like how the WPAC retires storms. Only the truly memorable ones are retired. Not just your "ordinary" destructive storms

I did see a mention that Karl is Mexico's most destructive. The NHC TCR indicates that it "only" caused a few hundred million in damage. I am not sure where the Wikipedia article got their billions of dollars figure. It was not even close to the same level as was Wilma. I favor Wilma and Ike retirements for their Mexico and Cuban impacts, not the US impacts (though Ike should have been retired for its US impacts as it was truly devastating for a large area. It's just that the damage was not on the same relative scale as it was in Cuba)

Karl's damage comes from Mexican newspaper reports. The TCR report in that instance includes only insured losses. Keep in mind it did hit a major city in Veracruz.

it was the weak side. Likely brought category 1 winds to Veracruz itself. If we go back to Gert in 1993, half of the city was flooded. I'd say that normalized, Gert was more damaging than Karl.

As for insured losses, isn't there a standard formula for that? From where did the Mexican news reports get their information? Media damage reports, even in the USA are notoriously unreliable

[Andrew92]

I agree that way too many names are retired in this day and age. Part of me almost wonders if it's to introduce new names to be used every year, so some convenient excuse has to be made unless we didn't get far enough down the list.

For instance, what did Keith in 2000 do in Belize that Hattie back in 1961 didn't? The latter storm, along with memories of another one in 1931, forced the capital to be moved inland to Belmopan! I wasn't around then, but Hattie probably deserved to be retired for that, plus killing as many people as it did (I believe close to 300 or so, someone correct me if I'm wrong). Keith? 5 dead in the same country and 24 overall. And Iris wasn't much better of a retirement candidate, even though it was a category 4. 31 dead and 19 missing is tragic, but that country has seen worse.

Storms like Isidore and Lili get retired and Gordon doesn't?

Also to go to the EPAC, names like Kenna and Odile were retired, but I believe I once read Liza wasn't? The deadliest named hurricane in recent years in Mexico, if I'm not mistaken?

This isn't meant to offend anyone who was significantly affected by those storms, and I sincerely can empathize with your pain if you lost a loved one and/or everything you had. I'm just saying that I agree with Alyono, just because it happens here or there with a destructive hurricane, doesn't make it legendary in the grand scheme of things.

One more I might add to Alyono's list for names I would retire would be Joan in 1988. It did kill 148 people in Nicaragua, left 100 missing, and was one of that country's worst disasters in history. I know Mitch was worse there when it unleashed that vicious mudslide on the Casitas volcano, but those type of storms are rare in that country and that one was a doozy in terms of damage on top of it.

Just some food for thought...

-Andrew92

[Alyono]

The thing about Joan is, Bret had an even stronger case to be retired, and I would say it was not quite enough to warrant it.

Joan was a bad one, however, as was Felix

[Andrew92]

Forgot about Bret. Thought I do think it would be wise to educate the public about Joan and Bret sometime, to demonstrate (again) that although a category 4 or 5 hurricane will almost certainly cause major damage over a wide area, a tropical storm is just as capable of it if it carries enough rain and causes deadly flash flooding. Even if those two weren't in the United States. I think a lot of people around the world who are impacted by these storms would do well to learn that lesson....by educating themselves, not having to learn it by living through it.

Heck, the area where I lived got quite a bit of flooding from the remnants of Norbert. I had friends who couldn't get in to work that day. Water was up to the windshields of cars. But we recovered well with little other incidents. Am I about to say Norbert should have been retired because of what it did in the Phoenix area, where I live? Of course not!

-Andrew92

[Yellow Evan]

it was the weak side. Likely brought category 1 winds to Veracruz itself. If we go back to Gert in 1993, half of the city was flooded. I'd say that normalized, Gert was more damaging than Karl.

As for insured losses, isn't there a standard formula for that? From where did the Mexican news reports get their information? Media damage reports, even in the USA are notoriously unreliable

Good point about Karl and Gert. Damage reports in Mexico tend to get them from the government reports. The damage total wasn't just made up, it may not be exact, but it def did in the ballpark of 1-2+ billion at minimum.

[Yellow Evan]

I agree that way too many names are retired in this day and age. Part of me almost wonders if it's to introduce new names to be used every year, so some convenient excuse has to be made unless we didn't get far enough down the list.

For instance, what did Keith in 2000 do in Belize that Hattie back in 1961 didn't? The latter storm, along with memories of another one in 1931, forced the capital to be moved inland to Belmopan! I wasn't around then, but Hattie probably deserved to be retired for that, plus killing as many people as it did (I believe close to 300 or so, someone correct me if I'm wrong). Keith? 5 dead in the same country and 24 overall. And Iris wasn't much better of a retirement candidate, even though it was a category 4. 31 dead and 19 missing is tragic, but that country has seen worse.

Storms like Isidore and Lili get retired and Gordon doesn't?

Also to go to the EPAC, names like Kenna and Odile were retired, but I believe I once read Liza wasn't? The deadliest named hurricane in recent years in Mexico, if I'm not mistaken?

This isn't meant to offend anyone who was significantly affected by those storms, and I sincerely can empathize with your pain if you lost a loved one and/or everything you had. I'm just saying that I agree with Alyono, just because it happens here or there with a destructive hurricane, doesn't make it legendary in the grand scheme of things.

One more I might add to Alyono's list for names I would retire would be Joan in 1988. It did kill 148 people in Nicaragua, left 100 missing, and was one of that country's worst disasters in history. I know Mitch was worse there when it unleashed that vicious mudslide on the Casitas volcano, but those type of storms are rare in that country and that one was a doozy in terms of damage on top of it.

Just some food for thought...

-Andrew92

If you think there are too many retirements as is, look down under and see hoe they retire everything down there.

FYI, Liza's isn't even the deadliest EPAC storm not to be axed. That honor goes to Paul 82, though most of it's damage was done as a TD.

[Cleveland Kent Evans]

Names are retired based on requests from the countries that the storm has affected.

I don't think it's wise to sit in the United States and criticize the authorities in Mexico or Nicaragua or Jamaica or anywhere else about what names they do or not do ask to have retired. It's their job to make those decisions based on their own experience and their own knowledge of what their culture considers appropriate.

[xtyphooncyclonex]

Names are retired based on requests from the countries that the storm has affected.

I don't think it's wise to sit in the United States and criticize the authorities in Mexico or Nicaragua or Jamaica or anywhere else about what names they do or not do ask to have retired. It's their job to make those decisions based on their own experience and their own knowledge of what their culture considers appropriate.

I totally agree. Retirement is from REQUESTS.