2025 Tropical Cyclone Name Retirements (Including but not limited to the Atlantic Basin)

[ljmac75]

Slightly off-topic perhaps, but the Hurricane Committee docs this year include a sort of proposal on name retirement criteria, I think particularly for smaller countries. Ideas like having consideration for hurricanes doing damage equal to specific percentages of a country's GDP, certain numbers of fatalities, if the storm caused a "humanitarian crisis" etc. I don't want to misrepresent it, so I don't want to put too many details without a working link. There's some other stuff there, a new experimental ellipsis based cone product, some ideas for extending hurricane warnings based on frequent gusts to hurricane force like in Helene, they're doing good work.

[Category5Kaiju]

Retired names and replacements are normally announced mid-day on the Wednesday of the annual Hurricane Committee meeting. Which is....today.

[zzzh]

 https://x.com/WMO/status/2029239901166735429

[AnnularCane]

Aw, I like Molly. I was hoping for either that or Megan.

[Category5Kaiju]

The Atlantic names now include Dolly, Holly, and Molly.

[AnnularCane]

The Atlantic names now include Dolly, Holly, and Molly.

I didn't think about that! At least they're not all on the same list.

I guess if a female P name is retired, the replacement will have to be Polly.

[Ulf]

I was hoping the new name would be Mary or Margaret instead of another diminutive or pet name.

[MadaTheConquistador]

The Atlantic names now include Dolly, Holly, and Molly.

I mean, the Atlantic names also has three variants of the name "Paul" (Paula, Pablo, and Paulette), so why not?

But in all seriousness, I think Molly is a pretty good replacement name even though it rhymes with Dolly and Holly, at least they didn't go for something like Marissa. Molly also joins Idris as the second fourth gen name, and is the first female fourth gen name too.

[Category5Kaiju]

With Erin and Humberto escaping retirement, there are now 5 active Atlantic names that were given to a Category 5 hurricane at some point in the past (along with Emily, Lee, and Lorenzo). I'm willing to bet that at some point in the future, at least one of those names will eventually be given to a Category 5 hurricane that actually wreaks havoc and brings about the nail in the coffin for that particular name.

[Cleveland Kent Evans]

I wasn't expecting Molly since it didn't turn up in lists of women from Jamaica I had found before, but in Googling "Molly Jamaica" it turns out that there was a British woman named Molly Huggins who was the wife of the governor general of Jamaica between 1943 and 1950. She founded the Jamaican Federation of Women so may still be remembered there.

There also is a Jamaican woman named Molly Rhone who has been prominent in the sport of netball in Jamaica. I had never heard of netball before today, but it evidently is a sport played primarily be women and well-known in many nations that are or were part of the British Commonwealth.

Thirdly, there is a Ghanaian-American singer who goes by the single name Molly who has some world-wide popularity and who performed at two different concerts in Jamaica last summer.

Jamaican connections aside, Molly is a good hurricane name because it is short and easily pronounceable.

[HurricaneRyan]

Molly instantly makes me think of the Arthur character, Molly MacDonald (one of the Tough Customers that is friends with Binky on the show), and it's a common name just like Melissa was, so good choice.

When you factor that Francine and Holly are also around now on the list prior, it makes me think of Francine Frensky from that same show, and then Degrassi character Holly J. Sinclair. (both of which were very antagonistic as well just like Molly although Holly J. had a redemption arc during her time on that show).

[Teban54]

The Atlantic names now include Dolly, Holly, and Molly.

I mean, the Atlantic names also has three variants of the name "Paul" (Paula, Pablo, and Paulette), so why not?

But in all seriousness, I think Molly is a pretty good replacement name even though it rhymes with Dolly and Holly, at least they didn't go for some like Marissa. Molly also joins Idris as the second fourth gen name, and is the first female fourth gen name too.

The Dolly-Holly-Molly combo would have been fine with me otherwise, if not for a few caveats:

• Holly, Molly and Dolly are on adjacent lists. In theory, a single region could be hit by Holly in 2030, Molly in 2031 and Dolly in 2032.
• Holly was selected as a replacement name just last year, immediately before Molly this year. So there's some recency effect in feeling like they're "doubling down" on -olly names.