NXStumpy_Robothing wrote:Yankee Corn Husker wrote:Weather Dude wrote:Um... No and no. If a storm is destructive enough, it's name will be retired, no matter what category it is. If isn't destructive enough, it isn't retired, including Cat 5's
This is where I read, posted under "Category 5 : https://www.cyclostorm.com/articles/saffirsimpsonscale.html
"Category 5 – 137+ knots (157+ mph; 262+ km/h). Complete roof failure on most buildings. Many buildings destroyed, or structurally damaged beyond repair. Catastrophic storm surge damage. All Category 5 hurricanes’ names are retired, regardless whether they ever make landfall. In the Northwest Pacific, a typhoon that reaches 150 mph (241 km/hr) is called a Super Typhoon. The damage caused by a super typhoon is equivalent to a strong Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane, depending on how strong the typhoon is. Because conditions in the Northwest Pacific favor storm formation throughout most of the year, super typhoons are much more common than Category 5 hurricanes. Every year the Northwest Pacific sees several super typhoons, while the Atlantic might see one Category 5 every few years."
This is a pretty classic example of why it's important to verify information provided by third-party/unaffiliated/unverified sources. While every Cat 5 up until Emily had been retired, they were not retired for their meteorological significance but instead due to the damage and destruction they caused due to a landfall. Since Emily and Lorenzo did not quite meet this criteria (though Emily's may have more been because it was overshadowed by the rest of 2005), they were not retired.
Achieving Category 5 strength is not what generates a worthy reason for a storm to be retired in the North Atlantic.
Actually, there are a few more unretired Cat 5s. Here are all of them:
Carol 1953, Esther 1961, Edith 1971, Emily 2005, Lorenzo 2019
Carol and Esther were mostly fishes that only brought minimal impacts to land at the very end of their life; Esther was also only classified as a Cat 5 during reanalysis. Edith did make landfall as a Cat 5 so I'm not sure why it wasn't retired, but the name Edith was also never used again.